Dorado Magazine - Nov/Dec 2015

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DORADO S A LT L A K E D U C K H U N T I N G

APRÈS SKI ST YLE

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Winter Adventure R EFIN ED LI V ING , BIG A DV EN T U R ES

A M OA B D E S E R T H I D E AWAY

POW DERY SLOPES SNOWSHOE TREKS HELI-SK I JUMPS WATERFA LL ICE CLIMBS BOBSLED RUNS NATUR A L HOT SPRINGS

N OV/ D E C 2 0 1 5

A Mountaintop Wine Bar & Bistro

Where the Rockies begin.

Adventure that Feeds the Soul. newmexico.org

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there comes a time when wealth management is all about how you

spnd your time

An Audubon Certified Golf Community

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

DURANGO COLORAD

Just north of historic downtown Durango, the San Juan Mountains embrace one of the most scenic private golf communities in the Rockies. To those who know its secrets, Glacier Club takes mountain living to new heights. Residents, members and guests are treated to magnifcent golf venues enveloped in stunning rock formations and are part of an active community where you simply know you belong.

UNIQUE DISCOVERY PACKAGES FOR 2015-2016 WINTER AND GOLF SEASON Four people will enjoy a three day, two night stay in a luxurious Glacier Club residence; round of Golf or Purgatory Ski Passes; and Clubhouse Dinner ($250 value). $1,250*.

We can also arrange for heli-skiing, snowmobile tours, horse-drawn sleigh rides, jeep tours, fy-fshing and more to enhance your visit.

To arrange your Glacier Club Experience, call 970.382.7800 or glacierrealty@glacierclub.com

rappcorral.com

Real MOUNTAINS. Real PEOPLE. Real VALUE. theglacierclub.com *Terms and Conditions: Availability is limited and reservations are required in advance. $1,250 is the lodging fee, greens fees or lif tickets, and dinner for four people.

DO’S ONLY PRIVATE GOLF COMMUNITY

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REAL ESTATE OPPORTUNITIES Custom Homes, Townhomes, Homesites

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MEMBERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES Equity, Non-Resident and Social Memberships NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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TABLE of CONTEN TS

42 42

66

FEATURES

42

Winter Adventure!

From snowshoeing to Nordic skiing to conquering untouched powder, the simple pleasures of the Southwest await.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

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by Jordan Martindell

56

Chill Out Bundle up with these cozy, cold-weather looks that are as rugged as they are handsome. photography by Cheyenne Ellis

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

Ski In, Eat Out High atop Telluride’s Rocky Mountains, Chef Nico Peccedi is giving Alpine Italian cuisine a Colorado makeover.

by Jen Murphy

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The Ranch, Reborn For centuries, the lush San Luis Valley in Colorado has been a home for wildlife, livestock and humans.

by Will Grant photography by Wynn Myers

COVER: VERNON WILEY. THIS PAGE, L-R: CHEYENNE ELLIS; KENNAN HARVEY; W YNN MYERS.

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Photo © Stan Yeatts

YOUR SEARCH ENDS HERE. Imagine mind-blowing views from the instant you step up to the massive glass and wood front doors and entry foyer. Enjoy the spacious deck while taking in sunsets, mountain views and city lights. Architecturally designed, this home has the perfect use of space with great style and comfort. With the indoor and outdoor spaces, this is a delightful way to live.

1149 S. Summit Ridge | $1,888,000 | mls 201502117

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• In-foor radiant heat • Italian-style terrace with fre bowl • 4,000 gallon water harvesting system • Gated community

Deborah Bodelson 505.660.4442

BODELSON SPIER TEAM 505.982.4466

• 4 bedroom | 3 bath | 3,900 sq.ft. | 0.63 acre • Chef’s kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances • Cherry wood cabinets • Cherry wood & stone-tile foors

Cary Spier, CNE 505.690.2856 Bodelson.Spier@sfprops.com SantaFeHomesNM.com

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www.santafeproperties.com

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DEPARTMENTS OUTDOORS

26 Duck and Cover

At the Great Salt Lake, duck hunters flock to one of the world’s largest waterfowl migrations.

IN TOWN

DORADOMAGAZINE.COM

AT HOME

36 On the Rocks

In the Utah desert, home is where you park your mountain bike at the end of a day on the trails.

DESTINATION

32 Ski Hive

A workshop in Colorado is handcrafting custom sets of skis based on complex algorithms and traditional design.

73 Sedona

Sunsets and iconic geology are just two of the forces that pull travelers to this wintertime desert oasis.

PA N O R A M A A SNA P SHOT OF T HE SOU T HWEST ’ S EV ENTS, C U LT U R E & P E O P L E EVENTS

and bright at these annual celebrations.

GEAR

18 Hit the slopes this

season with beautifully crafted skis, tough equipment and boldly colored accessories.

ART

80 M Y

20 A new exhibition shows DORADO

Inspired by the epic landscapes of the Southwest, artist Stella Maria Baer imbues her otherworldly canvases with the colors of the desert.

how pop culture is still remaking the prototype of the American West.

10 Letter from the Editor • 12 Masthead • 13 Contributors

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CRAFT

15 May your days be merry 22 The best tortillas this

side of the border aren’t from your favorite food truck. They’re coming out of the back of a pharmacy in Old Town Albuquerque.

DRINKS

24 Whether you’re seeking the perfect gift or mixing up bowlfuls of holiday cheer, these six Southwestern spirits are perfect for any bar.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY THE CIT Y OF PRESCOTT; COURTESY THE TUSCON MUSEUM OF ART; TESS ROUSEY; CL AY MCL ACHL AN; JEREMY SWANSON; TOM CORBETT.

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We had a food network before there was a Food Network. ™

Mesa, Arizona has a rich and delicious history of providing locals and visitors alike a bounty of culinary delights. From food festivals and farmers markets to endless epicurean extravagances, find your f lavor on our Fresh Foodie Trail ™ . #freshfoodiemesa MESA \ GILBERT \ QUEEN CREEK \ APACHE TRAIL \ TONTO NATIONAL FOREST

visitmesa.com/DTX NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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L ET T ER FROM THE E DITOR

Lunch with a View Grilled cheese and tomato soup. It doesn’t get much better, right?

Well, high atop Telluride Ski Resort, it gets better. A lot better. Skiers and snowboarders can take a break from the slopes of See Forever run to indulge in one of the Southwest’s best culinary experiences: pesto-laced grilled cheese, Gorgonzolastudded tomato bisque, an impeccable wine list and epic views of the Colorado Rockies from the deck of Alpino Vino restaurant.

It’s just one of the many reasons that there’s simply no better time of year to appreciate just how wildly diverse and special the Four Corners region is. While other parts of the country brace for weather-induced headaches and dwindling sunlight, we in the Southwest anticipate the season … well, like Christmas.

In this issue of Dorado, we feature some of our favorite winter adventures, from the action-packed (Winter Adventure, page 42) to the stylish (Chill Out, page 56) to the delicious (Ski In, Eat Out, page 50). In Colorado, we go extreme: scaling frozen waterfalls and discovering untouched ski slopes via helicopter. In New Mexico, we find a more leisurely pace: cross-country ski treks

and long soaks in natural hot springs, a perfect cap to a day on the trails.

And in Arizona, writer Stephanie Pearson shares what brings her back year after year to Sedona, where the red rock landscape and green ponderosa pines dazzle when dusted with the occasional snow (Destination: Sedona, page 73).

There’s so much more to experience in the Southwest during this thrilling time of year, and we hope this issue of Dorado inspires you to plan your next adventure.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH Open only in the winter, Alpino Vino at Telluride Ski Resort is the ultimate Colorado dining spot.

Jeff Ficker

TONY DEMIN

e d itor in ch ie f Dorado magazine

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

IF YOU WERE A

SNOWFLAKE,

YOU’D

HANG AROUND LONGER. flagstaffarizona.org | 800.842.7293 #WinterWonder

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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ONLINE E D I TO R I A L

Editor in Chief

STYLE

Jeff Ficker Creative Director

Caroline Jackson Crafton

6 ways to work a Navajo rug into your home décor.

Design Director

Marc Oxborrow Associate Editor/Digital Editor

Ellen Ranta Olson

MAKE

Online Design

Chuck Rose, Aaron Heirtzler editorial inquiries: editor@doradomagazine.com

Cozy up around the campfire with the ultimate s’more.

PRODUCTION

Creative Shared Services Director

Christy Pollard Senior Design Manager

Todd Bartz

EXPLORE

Production/Pagination

Suzanne Duke

4 spots for Southwestern stargazing.

Vice President of Enterprise Marketing

Kricket Lewis Subscription Services

Aani Parrish production inquiries: customerservice@doradomagazine.com ADVERTISING

Publisher

Chad Rose chadr@bcimedia.com Account Executives

#MyDorado

Denise Janove

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denisej@bcimedia.com

laurenrp@bcimedia.com

Theresa Monaco

Andrea Vaughan

tmonaco@bcimedia.com

avaughan@bcimedia.com

Marketing Coordinator

Brittany Cupp

Show us everything you love about the Southwest.

Chief Executive Officer

Tag your photos with #MyDorado and we’ll share our favorites.

Vice President of Finance and Operations

Douglas Bennett Bob Ganley To subscribe to Dorado magazine, visit doradomagazine.com.

DORADOMAGAZINE.COM

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Dorado magazine is published by Ballantine Communications.

Creative services provided by Casual Astronaut (casualastronaut.com).

Dorado magazine will not assume any responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or materials.

2015 Ballantine Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without prior written permission. ©

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1275 Main Ave., Suite 737 • Durango, CO 81301 ballantinecommunicationsinc.com

CONTRIBUTORS

Stephanie Pearson (Destination: Sedona, page 73) migrated to Santa Fe in 1995 after falling in love with skiing at Taos, green-chile and bacon breakfast burritos, and the Southwest’s endless sky. She is a contributing editor to Outside magazine and has also written for National Geographic Traveler, Men’s Journal and Wired, among other national publications.

FAVORITE PLACE IN THE SOUTH W EST

After a decadelong career as an experimental nuclear physicist, Minesh Bacrania (Tortilla Scoop, page 22) has established himself as an editorial and documentary photographer. His portraits and photo essays exploring the unique people and traditions of the Southwest have been featured in many regional and national publications.

He lives with his son in the mountains outside of Santa Fe.

Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico

FAVO R I T E PL AC E I N T H E S O U T H W E ST

“There are three reasons to love Taos: The runs are steep, the snow is most often deep and the sun is almost always shining.”

Northern New Mexico “I love the people and their stories, the history, the culture — and the scenery is pretty nice, too.”

Experience Southwestern Culture Through New Mexico's Only Local Hotel Group, Heritage Hotels & Resorts

Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town Rates Starting at $119

Wynn Myers (The Ranch, Reborn, page 66) is a lifestyle and editorial photographer based in Austin, Texas.

Myers searches for authentic moments in photography and loves to capture the beauty and joy in the everyday. She has shot for Food & Wine, Texas Monthly and The Atlantic. In her free time, you will find her hanging out with her husband, browsing vintage shops and spending time outdoors with her dogs.

FAVORITE PLACE IN THE SOUTH W EST

After growing up in California and years of East Coast city living, Jordan Martindell (Winter Adventure, page 42) moved to Boulder, Colorado, where she discovered a natural connection to the Rocky Mountain lifestyle. Martindell blends her love of aesthetics and the outdoors, documenting adventures that are delicious, comfortable, exciting and sometimes unexpected. She has written for Elevation Outdoors Magazine and the website offyonder.com.

Zapata Ranch, Colorado

FAVO R I T E PL AC E I N T H E S O U T H W E ST

“The great sand dunes are a quick car ride away.

You can hike up to the top of the dunes for an amazing view and then take a dip in the cold water at the base of the dunes.”

Santa Fe, New Mexico “Santa Fe satisfies my city-girl sensibilities in a sophisticated, beautiful and deeply cultural environment.”

Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces Rates Starting at $99

Hotel St. Francis in Santa Fe Rates Starting at $129

HHandR.com/Dorado NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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Santa Fe’s

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PANORAMA A S N A P S H O T O F T H E S O U T H W E S T ’ S E V E N T S , C U LT U R E & P E O P L E

EVENTS

The Holidays, 3 Ways May your season be merry and bright at these annual Southwestern celebrations

BRETT SCHRECKENGOST / TELLURIDE SKI RESORT

BY CELESTE SEPESSY

Telluride, Colorado, celebrates the holiday season with a Christmas Eve Torchlight Parade and fireworks.

PLUS:

18 | Gear

20 | Art

22 | Craft

24 | Drinks

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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PANORAMA

5

traditional

Prescott Courthouse and Tree Lighting Prescott, Arizona

DEC.

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The Farolito Walk

DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

Join 30,000 neighbors and visitors at Santa Fe’s beloved Christmas celebrations along Canyon Road. Known as the city’s gallery and dining destination, the historical mile-long stretch lights up with countless farolitos — “little lanterns” in Spanish. Stroll down a path lined with bonfires, musicians, cider, cookies and, of course, luminarias. Don’t miss the side streets, where you’ll find out-of-the-way, illuminated courtyards and corners dating back centuries.

Highlight: The Flying Farolito Brothers horn quintet swoops from bonfire to bonfire, playing your favorite holiday tunes.

If you’d rather hit the slopes than church on Christmas Eve, grab your gear and trek to Telluride Ski Resort.

Every year, skiers and snowboarders ignite red torches and weave down Coonskin and Telluride Trail runs.

Combine the blazing torches and fireworks, and you may have the mountain town’s best light show.

Highlight: Not up for a night ski? Hop on the free gondola connecting Telluride and Mountain Village for the best view in town.

adventure

Christmas Eve Torchlight Parade Telluride, Colorado

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Highlight: The Frontier Christmas Open House at Sharlot Hall Museum gives visitors a glimpse into re-enacted celebrations from centuries past.

southwestern

Santa Fe, New Mexico

DEC.

Head to “Arizona’s Christmas City” for Prescott’s 61sth annual holiday celebration. The day kicks off with the city’s kitschy Christmas parade, complete with marching bands and local floats. When the sun sets, the carolers and choirs continue the cheer.

Stick around for the main event: At 6 p.m., the town comes together to light more than 100 trees in the iconic Prescott Courthouse Plaza.

MICHAEL WILSON (TOP); SUMIKOPHOTO/ISTOCK (FAROLITOS); COURTESY TELLURIDE SKI RESORT

DEC.

photo:toddpowell.com toddpowell.com photo:

Mountain Magic > Few things are more magical than a mountain town.

With a charming Main Street.

Sandwiched between 6 world-class ski resorts.

Copper | Breckenridge | Keystone | Arapahoe Basin | Loveland | Vail

Wassail Days | December 4-13, 2015

Check us out. TownofFrisco.com

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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PANORAMA

GEAR

Ski Patrol

Hit the slopes this season with beautifully crafted skis, tough equipment and boldly colored accessories

BY DINA MISHEV

PO LE P O S I TI O N

Foot Friendly

With a 20 percent carbon shaft (read: feather-light) Rossignol’s Experience Pro Carbon Ski Poles keep the focus on legs rather than tiring out arms. $80, rei.com

Designed by a former ski racer, Apex’s new ML-3 (women’s) and MC-3 (men’s) boots prove comfort and performance aren’t mutually exclusive. $795, apexskiboots.com

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

TOP: MATTIA BALSAMINI/LUZ

Artful Skiing

In a workshop in northern Italy, Alessandro Marchi handcrafts what might be the world’s best skis, Foil. As much art as they are high performance: Clients have been known to mount a pair on their wall.

From $12,000, foilskis.com

PANORAMA Function Meets Fashion

With water-repellent down and a waterproof/ breathable outer layer, Stio’s Shot 7 is the ski jacket of this season. $550, stio.com

Head Case

Wear a beanie or goggles underneath POC’s new Auric helmet while enjoying increased protection around your ears and temple. $120, pocsports.com

LO OK L IVE LY From Mountain to Meeting The men’s and women’s models of Dakine’s new Heli Pro 20L pack have different fits, but share a smart design that carries skis, a snowboard and a 15-inch laptop. $90, dakine.com

Switch lenses easily with Smith’s I/O 7 goggles. They look even better with the geometric Navajo strap, a new collaboration between Smith and Woolrich. $225, rei.com

Ice Ice, Baby

Bogs makes all-weather boots for Mom and Dad, but none are as cute as this machine-washable, plush-lined, 100 percent waterproof toddler bootie. $50, bogsfootwear.com

GET INTO GEAR

Find more outdoor and sports equipment recommendations at doradomagazine.com.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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PANORAMA

T

ART

Pulp Art A new exhibition at the Tucson Museum of Art shows how pop culture is still remaking the prototype of the American West

BY P ET E R O ' D OW D

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

he American West has always been anchored in myth.

When Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their famous expedition, past the Mississippi River and deep into the Louisiana Purchase, the third president hoped the men would send back tales of mastodons roaming the plains.

The misperceptions and legends have persisted ever since, and they set the backdrop for a new exhibit at the Tucson Museum of Art. Western Heroes of Pulp Fiction: Dime Novels to Pop Culture spans more than a century of artwork that tracks how the American psyche has been captivated by the iconic — if not stereotypical — characters of the West. The cowboy with the square-cut jaw. The damsel in distress. The Mexican bandit. You can conjure these images so easily in large part because dime novels, pulp magazines and comic books captured the genre long before you were even born.

The popular dime novels of the mid19th century were more concerned with adventure-seeking scouts and frontiersmen than the lowly cowboy, says Christine Brindza, the exhibit’s curator.

Think Buffalo Bill, not John Wayne.

“Cowboys were looked down upon as a lower-class position,” she says. “‘Cowboy’ was a derogatory term.”

That changed with Owen Wister’s The Virginian. In 1902, the first true Western ever written recast the cowboy into the heroic, chiseled character we know today. Around the same time, Brindza says the dime novel starting fading away, comic books began to take their place, and the transformation of the hero continued. The artists who worked in these mediums almost always captured their heroes in action — perhaps a sales pitch to potential readers at a crowded newsstand. The danger on these covers often feels imminent but unseen, lurking just outside the confines of the page.

Brindza’s favorite piece is a 1934 R.G. Harris cover for Thrilling Western

From far left: The Tucson Museum of Art’s Western Heroes of Pulp Fiction ranges from to R.G. Harris’ Sheriff, 1934, for Thrilling Western Magazine to the more contemporary Giddy-Up!, 2015, by Ben Steele, and Wyoming #44, 1973, by Bill Schenck.

Magazine. Harris paints a young, scowling sheriff, red kerchief tied around his neck, breaking through the swinging doors of a saloon, guns blazing. To Brindza, the image perfectly captures the masculine mystique of the American West. It’s also an image that’s become outdated at a time when racial and gender biases are breaking down.

The exhibit comes full circle with contemporary artists like Bill Schenck, who puts his own irreverent spin on yesterday’s pulp magazine covers and films. In one piece that pokes fun at the genre’s misogynistic past, a cowboy with his six-shooter drawn politely propositions the woman he appears to be rescuing. “You don’t always have that Euro-American shoot-fromthe-hip kind of hero anymore,” Brindza says. “You can have women heroes. You can have heroes from different ethnicities.”

Which is to say that modern artists are finally catching up with the often-ignored truth that Westerns have always known: Our heroes are just people.

See Western Heroes of Pulp Fiction Oct. 24–Feb. 14 at the Tucson Museum of Art. For details, visit tucsonmuseumofart.org.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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PANORAMA Duran’s tortillas are shaped by hand, studded with char spots on a cast-iron comal and topped with classic New Mexican fare.

CRAFT

Tortilla Scoop The best tortillas this side of the border aren’t from your favorite food truck or taco cart — they’re coming out of the back of a pharmacy in Old Town Albuquerque

BY E L L E N R A N TA O L S O N • P H O T O G R A P H Y BY M I N E S H B AC R A N I A

D

uck into Duran Central Pharmacy on any given day, and you’re likely to find two different crowds.

The first is what you’d expect in a local drugstore: people picking up prescriptions. The other is unique to this Old Town ABQ mainstay and is made up of hungry locals and tourists alike, clamoring for a bowl of green chile stew with a side of justmade tortillas.

But Duran’s wasn’t always a dining destination, says owner Mona Ghattas.

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The now-award-winning food was initially just a happy accident.

“The pharmacy was opened in 1942 by a man named Pete Duran. My father bought it in 1965 after working there as a pharmacist and kept the name. There was a soda fountain in the back, but more and more, people wanted something to eat,” she says.

So Ghattas’ father, a chemist by trade, began experimenting with different dishes and learned quickly that his New Mexican food was the most popular. “It was his first endeavor with food, but the way his brain worked with

compounding medications translated into cooking.”

While Duran’s is well-known for its green and red chile (blended in-house with sun-dried New Mexico chiles), it’s the hand rolled tortillas that have their own cult-like following.

And for good reason — these aren’t your typical store-bought, paper-thin wraps masquerading as tortillas.

Duran’s tortillas are thick and fluffy with the perfect blend of darkened char spots and bright white floury goodness. They’re made to order on an actual cast-iron comal and shaped by hand using a rolling pin before being slathered with butter. The one nontraditional twist? Duran’s doesn’t use any lard in their tortillas, so they’re vegetarian-friendly.

It’s how they’ve been doing it since the ’60s, and Ghattas doesn’t expect that to change any time soon. “We really don’t change the menu too often, because, as they say: If it’s not broken, why fix it?”

ExplorE thE WandErlust

FarmingtonNM.org

DAYDREAMS, delivered.

Get your dose of big adventures sent straight to your inbox every other week with the Dorado e-newsletter.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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PANORAMA

DRINKS

6 Spirits of the Southwest Whether you’re seeking the perfect bottle to give as a gift or mixing up bowlfuls of holiday cheer for a party, here are six great Southwestern spirits perfect for any bar

BY KARA NEWMAN

Bearing a passing resemblance to Italy’s famous bitter amaro, this Coloradomade variation steeps herbs, roots and spices for a variation that will remind some of a gently bitter sarsaparilla.

Though it’s wonderful as a digestif or mixed into cocktails, the producer says it really was created with beer in mind: Try adding a few ounces to a pint of IPA. breckenridgedistillery.com

2. High West Bourye This vibrant blend of bourbon and rye whiskeys melds the best of both spirits: The caramel and brown sugar typical of bourbon is accented by the bracing spice characteristic of rye, yielding a complex whiskey ideal for

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

sipping or mixing. Its creator, High West in Park City, Utah, lays claim to being the world’s only ski-in distillery. highwest.com

3. Treaty Oak Barrel Reserve Rum This innovative craft distiller in Texas Hill Country has been making some delicious spirits, including this daiquiriworthy rum. The base is distilled from Texas molasses, then it’s aged in American oak barrels in the hot Texas sun for two years. The end result is a fruity burst overlaid with vanilla and spice, like baked pears or bananas Foster, ideal for mixing into rum punches and other festive drinks. treatyoakdistilling.com

4. CapRock Gin Distilled high in the Colorado mountains, the base of this unique gin is made from certified organic apples, then infused with a blend of a dozen fruits, flowers, seeds and spices, creating a slightly fruity gin that finishes lean and crisp. Mixologists in Denver and Aspen are pouring CapRock into high-end libations; it’s also a perfect companion for a refreshing G&T. peakspirits.com

5. Soiled Doves Vodka The name of the vodka refers to the saucy Old West term for saloon and dance hall girls, who played a key role in building Durango, Colorado, home base to producer Durango Craft

RHETT BL ANKENSHIP

1. Breckenridge Bitter

For Those Who Love The Western Lifestyle As Much As We Do

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TREATY OAK DAIQUIRI 2 oz. Treaty Oak Barrel Reserve Rum ¾ oz. simple syrup ¾ oz. fresh-squeezed lime juice Thin lime slice

Authentic. Simple. Classic.

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Combine Treaty Oak Barrel Reserve, simple syrup and lime juice into an ice-filled mixing glass and shake well.

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with lime slice.

Spirits. The vodka’s fleeting sweetness is due to one key ingredient: nativegrown, non-GMO white corn from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in Towaoc, Colorado. durangospirits.com

6. Copper City Bourbon Arizona Distilling Co. makes this vanilla-tinged, 2-year-old bourbon from corn, rye and barley. It’s the first legally produced bourbon in the state since Prohibition, and the freewheeling, small-batch spirit is ideal for mixing into classic cocktails like the Old-Fashioned. The distillery also produces a whiskey made from local durum wheat. azdistilling.com

A TASTE OF SANTA FE

British-born Colin Keegan infuses the New Mexico desert into his artisanal brandy, gin and whiskeys. Read more at doradomagazine.com/thats-the-spirit.

MARKETPLACE

VISIT ONLINE Shop for the products, places and experiences featured in our magazine. Products chosen by our staff and select advertisers.

WWW.DORADOMAGAZINE.COM/MARKETPLACE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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OUTDOORS

DUCK A ND COV ER Floating in a small, concealed den on the Great Salt Lake, hunter David Draper experiences one of the world’s largest waterfowl migrations PHOTOGRAPHY BY TESS ROUSEY

ur airboats roar in tandem across the wide, glaring expanse.

All around us, the world is table flat with no clear line separating water and sky. A few rocky islands rise from the glimmering surface, and a ways to the east stands a snow-peaked front of craggy mountains.

My partners and I are bundled tightly against the November cold, complete with oversized goggles, earmuffs and face masks. The sun shines brightly, and I can’t help but feel a little like Luke Skywalker cruising his landspeeder over the surface of Tatooine, though it isn’t droids we are looking for.

Instead, we are on a search for ducks, and our guides, Josh Noble, a pro-staffer for waterfowl outfitter Avery Outdoors, and Chuck Harsin, owner of Widowmaker Mud Boats, have found them far out on Utah’s Great Salt Lake. A long black line of birds flickers on the blurry horizon, rising and falling like waves crashing on a distant shore. Soon, Noble assures us, the ducks will start moving from there to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge to our north. He urges us to move quickly as we stake a wide spread of black silhouettes — plastic sheeting cut roughly into duck shapes — into the shallow water and toss out a few floating decoys to give the raft of

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

EARLY BIRDS

Over the course of a season, Utah’s Great Salt Lake hosts as many as 4 million migratory birds, making it a prime spot for duck hunters.

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I spent the morning dreaming up roasting recipes and mentally making space on the wall for a canvasback mount.

fake birds some motion. Among them, we arrange six man-sized tubs, aptly named coffin blinds, which we hope will keep us dry as we lie in wait for the afternoon flight.

For waterfowl hunters, this 1,700-square-mile saltwater basin, much of it just inches deep, is one of the world’s premier destinations. Over the course of the season, the Great Salt Lake hosts as many as 4 million migratory birds, ranging from the diminutive greenwinged teal — our primary target today — to the giant tundra swan. The alkali bulrushes and invasive phragmite grasses that surround the lake hide puddle ducks, including groups of emerald-green mallards and one of the nation’s largest gatherings of pintail, while the deeper waters hold several species of diving ducks.

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It was the latter group, made up of redhead, scaup and the prized canvasback, that we hunted the day before, shooting from layout boats anchored in Farmington Bay. On land, the saucer-shaped discs resembled nothing more than UFOs, but with a shallow draft and painted gray, they all but disappear in the water, making them the perfect places to hide. Like the coffin blinds, a layout has room (barely) for a single hunter, who bobs among a mixed flotilla of duck decoys.

Gunning for diver ducks is typically a fast and furious affair, as the stout-bodied birds scream along the surface of the lake, not so much decoying as just giving the spread a Top Gun-type flyby. When a hunter is lucky or good enough to connect, the birds pinwheel

GOOD AND READY

From top: The crew and chocolate Lab, Jack, prepare for a day on the lake; layout boats keep hunters dry as they lie in wait, surrounded by decoys.

across the water, or, as was the case for one in our group, kamikaze into the boat. Throughout the course of the morning, we took turns shooting. Every so often, a tender boat would come out to fetch our birds and ferry us back to land, where a hot breakfast and hotter coffee steamed on the camp stove.

This was my second trip to the Great Salt Lake in the past three years, and I hoped this one would finally offer up a bull canvasback. Known among hunters as the king of ducks, the big, rust-plumed bird with the Roman-nose beak is not only strikingly handsome, but also considered the best-eating duck on the wing. I spent the morning dreaming up roasting recipes and mentally making space on the wall for a canvasback mount that would surely come;

however, the layout I had drawn floated in a flyway more preferred by greater scaup. It didn’t take me long to realize I had better be content to fill my limit with the blue-billed ducks, lest I go hungry.

At least I would save on the taxidermy bill.

If the canvasback is the tastiest duck, greenwinged teal trails by only a feather, and I’m genuinely thrilled when the first few fly over the airboats while we’re still setting our spread. Noble and Harsin assure us there will be plenty more before they speed off to hide the boats (though there is really no way to adequately hide them out here on the moonscape and they still shimmer mirage-like as our guides trudge back across the flat). Soon, we settle into our respective coffins, pump the shotguns NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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Jack is a young dog, but with a few hand signals from his owner, he soon splashes his way back with the teal held gently in his mouth.

THE REAL McCOY

From top: By afternoon, the painted decoys give way to the real thing: green-winged teal.

full of shells and wait out the flight, which commences in mere minutes.

A pair of teal is the first to come, peeling off from the thousands-strong flock floating out there and coming over for a glance at our fakes. The ducks look high to me as I lie on my back in the shallow water, and I let them pass — but it’s just a trick of the eye, and a hunter off to the left proves it by easily taking a drake down with a single shot. The blast causes the raft of ducks in the distance to rise and settle again, but not before more fly our way.

The first three to arrive fall for our ruse and cup their wings to land — this time just to my right. I try to sit up and twist my torso, but it’s an awkward shot and I miss with my first two tries. Somehow, I manage to drop one of the trio on my third shot as the duck flies into my pattern in its bid to escape. Before I can climb out of the box, Harsin’s chocolate Lab, Jack, busts by in a surge of muddy water that covers me. It’s a long retrieve and Jack is a young dog, but with a few

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hand signals from his owner, he soon splashes his way back with the teal held gently in his mouth. Noble’s black Lab, Teal, an aged veteran, watches intently.

The shooting continues like this for a few hours, not fast and furious like the diver hunt, but at a comfortable pace, giving us enough time between flights to relax and enjoy the day. More teal come, along with some northern shovelers, which make up for their muddy taste with beautiful iridescent plumage. We remark at Jack’s enthusiasm and watch in awe Teal’s ability to retrieve any duck that falls with no handling necessary. But mostly, we take in the view, now knowing what the waterfowling must be like if ducks fly in a galaxy far, far away.

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

For more of our favorite Southwestern adventures, visit doradomagazine.com/big-adventures.

W W W . W I L L I A M H E N R Y. C O M

WI LLIAM H EN RY.CO M NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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IN TOWN

SKI HIVE A bustling workshop in Placerville, Colorado, is handcrafting custom sets of high-performance skis based on complex

rom the outside, the Wagner Custom Skis shop doesn’t look like much. A renovated gas station in sleepy Placerville, Colorado, 16 miles down-valley from Telluride, it’s just a squat adobe box with peeling paint, blue trim and a solar array guarded by a pickup.

On a Wednesday afternoon, I open the creaky front door and find owner Pete Wagner himself, a wiry awkward-genius type with blue eyes and a five o’clock shadow, sitting at a small desk, surrounded by dozens of pairs of skis.

In the back room, a saw buzzes, a ski press hisses and young men in aprons spread resin on snowboard materials. Armed with a set of custom-designed algorithms Wagner wrote himself, they are making one-of-a-kind skis and snowboards for the sports’ most devoted aficionados. In other words, it’s a ski bum’s dream.

Like many ski-town residents, Wagner moved to Telluride planning to stay only a winter. With a mechanical engineering degree

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and a background in computer science, he was writing software code for a San Diego-based golf company that analyzed swings and translated the data into custom club designs for golf pros. While struggling for a couple of months with a pair of skis he didn’t like on the steep slopes of Telluride, it occurred to him: Why not develop the same kind of software for custom skis?

After getting his MBA at the University of Colorado Boulder, Wagner moved back to Telluride and launched Wagner Custom Skis in 2006, offering money-back (or free-rebuild) guarantees on every kit. Over nine years, the company grew from churning out 40 sets per year to 1,400 — and last year, only four pairs were sent back.

“We’re basically the biggest nerds in the ski industry,” says Wagner, guiding me to the back of the room to show me the Tensile Testing Machine. He offers tours by appointment and, starting this winter, every week. “What we do in the fall is we borrow skis from the local shops — there’s something like 18 in Telluride,

TOM CORBETT; BRETT SCHRECKENGOST (INSET)

algorithms and traditional design. Kate Siber takes a tour

BESPOKE AND BEAUTIFUL

Wagner Custom Skis designs one-of-a-kind products for its devoted customers, from powder-lovers looking for wide tips and lightweight cores to all-mountain skiers in need of a smooth ride and stable edges.

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ARTS AND CRAFTSMANSHIP The Wagner production process

begins with a customer filling out a questionnaire and consulting with a designer. The details are then plugged into a set of algorithms before the engineers, craftsmen and graphic designer take over.

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“We’re basically

main factory floor sit huge rolls of base materials, containers of metal edges, the biggest and stashes of fiberglass, carbon fiber and aluminerds in the num alloy. Chris Robison, a ponytailed mechanical ski industry.” engineer and former ski tuner with a backwards baseball cap, spreads resin on a snowboard in front of a ski press machine. In another room, a computer-guided saw whirrs away. Wagner, who has the air of a laid-back mad scientist, walks me through a process that seems like hundreds of steps, from cutting and pressing the materials to sanding metal edges and stone-grinding bases.

Who buys a $1,750 (or more, depending on the materials) pair of handcrafted skis? “A lot of them are the best skiers, they have their dream ski in mind, and we’re the people who can execute it,” says Wagner, leading past carbon-fiber ribbons and sheets of Kevlar. “Another example is a person who goes on two ski vacations a year and they don’t want to spend their precious time in the mountains trying to figure out their equipment.” The ultimate goal?

Maximize fun, of course.

At the back of the shop, Wagner leads me up a narrow staircase to an airy room where Heather Baltzley, the company’s graphic designer, huddles over her computer, creating the skis’ piece de resistance: custom graphics.

Nearby, a set of skis with a paisley motif sits on top of a pile. Another set with a personalized logo leans against the wall. Baltzley has fashioned skis adorned with Basquiats and Andy Warhols from private art collections, personalized photos, the blueprint for a knee surgery, and even a leopard and gemstones.

“That lady absolutely loved them,” says Baltzley, her face lighting up. “I like when people have a clear idea of a statement for their skis. The graphics may not sing to everyone, but it’s their gig. And that’s what it all comes down to: We want them to be incredibly stoked.”

WILLIAM WOODY (CENTER); SCOTT DW SMITH (TOP AND BOTTOM)

so pretty much every brand is represented,” he says. “Not to be too much of an engineering dork here, but we’ll actually measure the stiffness and flex pattern of skis using this machine.” All of the specs go into a massive database, so he can understand the exact properties of past skis that customers have liked or not liked — and improve upon them.

Customers fill out a questionnaire about themselves and their ski habits — height, gender, age and the terrain and conditions they like to ski — and chat with a designer, who helps imagine the perfect ski by improving upon their past models. The details are plugged into a set of algorithms that spit out a recipe for the skis, which take about three weeks to build.

For example, a powder-lover from Utah might get a ski with a wide tip, a lightweight aspen core and a carbon fiber torsion box, which would float and plow through deep snow but remain light enough for quick turns in trees and steeps. An all-mountain skier from Vermont would get a narrower ski with traditional camber, a harder sugar maple-white ash core, and Titanal structural layers for a smooth, responsive ride with stable edges.

Wagner ushers me into a hallway, past stacks of boards that will become the skis’ wood cores. On the

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35

AT HOME

ON THE ROCKS Deep in the Utah desert, home is where you park your mountain bike at the end of a long day on the trails. Erinn Morgan goes in search of a secluded retreat P H OTO G R A P H Y BY J E R E MY SWA N S O N

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RIDE OFF INTO THE SUNSET

Though the remote location of Scott Dolginow and Patsy Wilmerding’s home created logistical challenges, its 80acre site offers spectacular views and ample mountain biking opportunities.

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he setting is unforgettable.

Flanked by powerful buttes and towering mountains, the deep, rich-red rock spires jut towards the sky. Fine granules of cinnamoncolored sand coat the landscape.

It is the stunning desert land of John Wayne movies and the muse of celebrated environmental author Terry Tempest Williams. The Colorado River runs through it.

And, the unpopulated, pristine expanse just east of Moab, Utah, near Castle Valley and the infamous base-jumping destination of Fisher Towers is exactly where Scott Dolginow and his wife, Patsy Wilmerding, chose to build a modern oasis that blends seamlessly with the landscape.

“The spectacular site for this project is fairly remote and 20-something miles from Moab,” says Dolginow, an Aspen veterinarian and owner of the Mill Creek Animal Hospital in Moab. “The last 2 ½ miles in from historic Dewey Bridge is on a fairly rough road that has one spot that occasionally washes out.”

Though this home’s location served up logistical challenges — including difficulties getting materials and labor to the site — Dolginow chose the otherwise covetable parcel of 80 acres, which is surrounded by lands managed and protected by the Bureau of Land Management.

“This house is probably my third or fourth midlife crisis. I had bought a house in Snowmass [Colorado] and appreciated it a lot, but I really loved coming to the desert and trail running and biking,” Dolginow says. “I turned 50 and didn’t know how many more years I could trail run or bike, so I found this spot in Waring Canyon. It was closer to Aspen than Moab was, and it was isolated but still had power. I thought, ‘This is exactly what I want.’”

In addition to the extreme desert climate, driving in workers daily from Fruita, Colorado, more than an hour away, and the challenges associated with supply delivery, the remote site’s sand turned out to be unsuitable for drainage and the home’s foundation. As a result, the native sand had to be dug up and removed — and replaced with sand of acceptable size.

Dolginow worked with his longtime friend, architect Doug Rager, to create a modern, functional home that blended in with the spectacular landscape. “Where we are

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SOUTHWEST STYLE

Clockwise from top: A low profile and native plants help the home blend into the landscape; a latilla pergola leads to a swimming pool in the back; the home’s interior features a bright, open floor plan.

“It’s a fantastic spot. We have a lot of ... love for that area so we really wanted to make sure we built the house with respect.”

HOME TOURS

See more architecturally stunning houses from around the Southwest at doradomagazine.com/design-style.

there are no other houses,” says Dolginow. With the goal of blending in visually, the house was stucco-colored to match the desert sand and rock.

Rager also created a single-level design to better fit into the landscape.

“It’s a fantastic spot. We have a lot of … love for that area so we really wanted to make sure we built the house with respect,” says Rager.

Rager spent some time on the site developing an understanding of it before starting the design.

“Establishing the access drive and orientation plus building location was first,” Dolginow says. “We really wanted the house to blend with the natural landscape but also provide shelter from prevailing wind and the intense desert exposure.”

What resulted was a modern, three-bedroom house with another bedroom separated for privacy from the main portion of house. The secondary sleeping quarters, accessible via a covered exterior terrace, was designed for Dolginow’s partner in the land purchase and home build, Larry Marks.

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STAR QUALITY

The only night lights for miles and miles: a starry firmament over the desert floor.

“This is a home built to relax in after exploring the endless miles of desert trails on foot or bike.”

The garage is also detached, and a small, semienclosed, fruit-bearing orchard is located between the house and garage. “Developing the outdoor terrace areas with a lap pool and hot tub was a priority,” says Rager.

“Returning and restoring the natural, existing desert landscape right up to the house footprint was an important original goal that was accomplished.”

The house was also oriented to take advantage of the area’s nearly 360-degree views, with each room having different perspectives. “It’s basically three walls of glass,” says Dolginow. “We made it all about the views and feeling like you’re outside even when you’re inside.”

Dolginow also tapped the talents of Basalt, Coloradobased designer Karen White to curate the look of the home’s interior. “I came in during the construction phase to help them finish the interior, including selecting finishes and colors,” says White. “When we first approached the house on the road, about a mile out where the road crests, we stopped the car and [Scott] said, ‘See if you can find the

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house.’ It literally took me a few minutes and I found it. It’s an amazing blend of the architecture and the land.”

White created a contemporary look for the home. “Our goal was to make it easygoing, relaxing and soothing, almost spa-like,” she says. “This is a home built to relax in after exploring the endless miles of desert trails on foot or bike.” To hone the look, White focused on keeping things simple and letting the natural elements shine. “We used a clear finish on the floor, thus letting the wood be the wood,” she explains. “The kitchen cabinets are maple, and we did a natural, clear finish on those to let the materials be as pure as possible.”

Dolginow was also conscious of choosing durable materials that would last and withstand the desert’s harsh weather patterns as well as a brood of canines. “Maple is a very hard wood,” says White, “and the floor is a white oak, which is one of the hardest materials to use for a hardwood floor.”

In the end, luxury meets the desert in this one-of-akind home nestled comfortably in a spectacular setting.

“Our idea with the interior design was to keep it high quality but simple in earth tones that blended with the environment,” says Dolginow. “A few people have gone there to visit and have said it’s like having your own national park. I describe it as going backpacking in a really nice tent.”

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WINTER WINTER

BY JORDAN MARTINDELL

ADVENTURE! ADVENTURE! The vast mountain terrain and simple pleasures of the rural Southwest are calling. Whether snowshoeing through a mountain ravine, Nordic skiing on a ranch or conquering untouched powder, the wild winter frontier awaits

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CLEAR THE AIR Let the fun begin!

Skiers of all levels find big thrills in the chill at Solitude Mountain Resort outside of Salt Lake City.

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COLORADO COLORADO

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GO WILD Clockwise from left: Snowshoeing Colorado’s pristine backcountry; scaling the the frozen cliffs of Ouray Ice Park, a popular spot for winter climbers; fat tire biking is even better with a view of Durango.

MICHAEL CL ARK (LEFT); KENNAN HARVEY (2). PREIVOUS: STEVEN LLOYD

A A

go extreme

drenaline makes any adventure better, and Colorado’s dramatic terrain presents the opportunity to push your limits. The easiest way to conquer untouched powder in Colorado’s pristine backcountry is by helicopter.

Helitrax offers backcountry heli-ski adventures out of Telluride’s Peaks Resort and Spa in Mountain Village.

Single- and multi-day trips include gear — and the food and après ski amenities to toast your turns at the end of the day.

For a one-of-a-kind adventure, try scaling one of Colorado’s iced-over waterfalls. Ascending these towering frozen buttresses provides an unusual perspective for experienced climbers who usually hang from a rock face. Rifle Mountain State Park

boasts some of the best ice climbing in the country, and Josh Allison of Glenwood Climbing Guides recommends Final Curtain and Soul On Ice as some of the locals’ favorite routes.

Another popular destination: Ouray Ice Park, which offers 3 vertical miles of frozen vertical terrain.

Think mountain biking is just for summer? A blanket of new-fallen snow transforms Durango’s trails into the ultimate destination for a growing legion of fat-tire lovers.

And just north of Silverton, Ophir Pass Road disappears into a hidden ravine for roughly 3 miles before ascending toward OPUS Hut. Snowshoeing this moderately inclined trail, with the jagged peaks of the San Juan Mountains towering above, is a scenic, heart-throbbing adventure.

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n the summer, visitors flock to the Grand Canyon, taking in the epic views of the vast chasm cut by the Colorado River. But taking a winter trip to the Grand Canyon welcomes a solitary experience that can only be found offseason. While the rim can be cold and snowy, the bottom of the canyon is surprisingly temperate.

If you are looking for a truly diverse experience with a balance of

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civilization and solitude, Debbie Hendricks, owner of Just Roughin’ It Adventure Company, recommends the Rim to Rim to Rim trip. The guided six-day backpacking journey can be customized to ensure a mostly solitary and absolutely stunning experience.

The trip starts at the South Rim, dips into the canyon, works its way up to the North Rim and back again.

The option to stay at the North Rim Yurt is great for those looking to take a break from sleeping outdoors

and experience the magic of yurt life — communal dwelling in the light and warmth of a wood-burning stove.

And because the North Rim is closed to vehicle access from December to May, it is the perfect destination for adventurers looking to feel the massive power of the canyon’s presence among the quiet company of just a few people.

COURTESY GR AND CANYON NATIONAL PARK (CANYON, YURT); DAWN KISH (RUNNER)

II

Enjoy the View

ARIZONA ARIZONA

THE DEPTHS OF WINTER Clockwise from top: Snowfall on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon; rustic accommodations at the North Rim Yurt; exploring northern Arizona’s forests.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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NEW MEXICO NEW MEXICO

GREAT ESCAPE Clockwise from the top: Snowboarders and skiers in northern New Mexico search for a choice spot to begin their descent; an après ski break at Ojo Caliente Hot Springs; a native western screech owl.

xploring New Mexico’s winter landscape doesn’t mean giving up fine food or a bit of culture. Ghost Ranch, a retreat and education center just an hour’s drive from Santa Fe, has lured artists, explorers and spiritual seekers for decades — including Georgia O’Keeffe, who painted almost every view of the surrounding sandstone formations and sweeping valley

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of the Chama Basin. The ranch’s winter programs blend the very best of culture and adventure. Entering the White Mystery adventure (a multi-day course at the ranch), arms you with the skills needed to explore on skis or snowshoes.

Though most of the course is spent on snow, time to explore the ranch and visit Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs resort and spa is included.

In northern New Mexico, more than 500,000 acres of wilderness

surround the Costilla Lodge at Ted Turner’s Vermejo Park Ranch. The lodge comes with eight simple yet sophisticated rooms, a private chef and a striking panorama of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and Costilla Basin. At 10,200 feet, it serves as the perfect base camp for Nordic skiing, snowshoeing, ice fishing and wildlife viewing. Cap off your outdoor activities with gourmet meals, an in-room massage or fireside chats with other guests.

BUD FORCE /AUROR A (TOP), ISTOCK (OWL), JULIEN McROBERTS

E E

Explore in style

relive the olympics

UTAH UTAH

F F FIRE AND ICE

KERI BASCETTA (TOP), COURTESY UTAH OLYMPIC PARK (BOBSLED), BRUNO LONG

Clockwise from the top: Evening s’more time at Deer Valley; skiing fresh powder at Solitude Mountain Resort; the Winter Comet Bobsled at Utah Olympic Park in Park City.

ew places boast Olympic-sized adventures. However, Utah’s winter offerings give you the opportunity to experience adventure from the viewpoint of an elite athlete. Some of the best downhill skiing in the Southwest can be found on the state’s diverse resort terrain. While the Olympic crowds are long gone, these manicured slopes provide ample opportunity for a little healthy competition. Experience the slopes of the giant slalom on CB’s Run at Park City, test your bumps on Champion’s moguls at Deer Valley or check your Super-G need for speed on Grizzly Downhill at Snowbasin.

The Winter Comet Bobsled is a thrilling ride that provides breakneck speed under the supervision of a qualified professional. With four to five times the force of gravity whipping you around multiple turns at up to 70 mph, the Comet will satisfy even the most extreme adventurers. For the more independent thrill-seeker, the park offers Rocket Skeleton rides that hurtle you down the bobsled run at up to 50 mph — lying facedown on a sled with ice inches from your face.

If you’ve always wanted to fly, ski jumping is available for those with prior experience. Or if spectating is your thing, feel the rush of watching someone soar through the air, 20 feet above a field of white snow.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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SKI EAT IN OUT

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High atop Telluride’s Rocky Mountains, CHEF NICO PECCEDI is giving Alpine Italian cuisine a Colorado makeover. JEN MURPHY takes off her skis and pulls up a chair at Alpino Vino

THIS PAGE, BEN ENG; OPPOSITE, COURTESY OF TELLURIDE SKI RESORT

HAUTE CUISINE

At 11,966 feet, Alpino Vino at Telluride Ski & Golf Resort is North America’s highest elevation fine dining restaurant; Chef Nico Peccedi’s Roasted Tomato Caprese Salad, with Colorado mozzarella cheese, roasted peppers and pesto.

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JOY RIDE

Part of Alpino Vino’s draw: the journey. At night, a heated snowcat delivers diners to the restaurant, where Champagne al fresco awaits.

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hen skiers rise early to score “first chair,” they’re usually referring to the first chairlift going up the mountain. In Telluride, at least amongst my friends, the saying “first chair” also refers to scoring a coveted seat for lunch at Alpino Vino, a tiny restaurant perched near the top of See Forever run and Gold Hill Express Lift 14. As much I love fresh powder, I also love a great meal. When people ask why I fly to Europe to ski every year, even though I live in Colorado, my answer is simple: the food.

A perfect day on the slopes in Zermatt or Lech involves chasing powder but also kicking off my ski boots and sitting down to a two-hour, wine-paired lunch. Dave Riley, the former CEO of Telluride Ski & Golf Resort, has also experienced the gustatory pleasures of skiing in the Alps and luckily for me,

DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

decided to introduce the philosophy of “ski hard, eat well” to Americans.

At 11,966 feet, Alpino Vino owns bragging rights as North America’s highest fine dining restaurant. Modeled after a quaint, European hut, it has just 28 seats inside, plus a heated, multitier deck, which affords spectacular views of the Wilson Range. My first meal at Alpino Vino immediately transported me back to Chez Vrony, a family-run restaurant in the shadow of the Matterhorn in Zermatt. The food is rustic and simple, made from the best local ingredients and prepared from scratch. The atmosphere is cozy, not stuffy, and the wine list is extraordinary without being pretentious. Chez Vrony’s legendary burger paired with a vintage Bordeaux or a small-production Swiss red is the epitome of high-altitude fine dining, striking just the right balance of refined and relaxed.

There is an inherent casualness to any meal

THIS PAGE, TOP: BRETT SCHRECKENGOST; BOTTOM AND OPPOSITE, BEN ENG

There is an INHERENT CASUALNESS to any meal when you are dining in ski pants atop a mountain in the middle of nature. You appreciate REFINED TOUCHES, but more than anything you want SOUL-SATISFYING FOOD. when you are dining in ski pants atop a mountain in the middle of nature. You appreciate refined touches, but more than anything you want soulsatisfying food, and that’s exactly what Alpino Vino’s chef, Nico Peccedi, delivers. Peccedi grew up in the ski village of Bormio in the Italian Alps, close to the Swiss border. He joined Alpino Vino in 2011, bringing his family traditions to the table.

“When you live high up in the mountains, you depend on the basics — quality, organic ingredients like butter, flour, cheese, eggs — and you make everything from scratch,” he says.

Each morning, Peccedi throws on winter layers, loads his ingredients on the back of a snowmobile, and drives up to the restaurant. His packing must be precise.

If he runs out of an ingredient, he can’t simply send someone to the market for more. Cooking at nearly 12,000 feet has other challenges. The restaurant relies on a snowcat to deliver its water supply, and Peccedi and his team must cook on a portable induction burner because the restaurant does not have gas.

Lunch is first-come, first-serve, which means by midafternoon a line of hungry skiers stretches down See Forever trail awaiting a table. Andrew Shaffner, Alpino Vino’s general manager and wine director, recalls the restaurant’s busiest day ever, December 30, 2012, when 60 people were waiting on the ski run. “The only thing I could do was start handing out glasses and pouring Champagne,” he says. The incident inspired him to build a Champagne lounge out of snow the next season. Now on a solid powder day, my friends and I can ski our butts off and don’t mind waiting in line. It turns out Champagne is the perfect precursor to Alpino Vino’s magical grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.

I am a creature of habit and a devotee of Peccedi’s grilled cheese. His secrets include pesto made fresh each day and cheese sliced to order. The sandwich begs to be dunked in the Gorgonzola-studded tomato bisque on a cold winter day and devoured while huddled in a sheepskin throw on the deck.

Occasionally I am swayed from my go-to when I see that Peccedi has added his personal favorite — lasagna Bolognese — as a special. My friends, who hail from New England, can never resist the lobster roll, which they swear could rival any in Maine.

Perhaps that’s because Alpino Vino’s sous-chef is from Maine and has live lobsters flown in straight from the lobster trap each day. Tummies full, ski

WINE WITH A VIEW

The wine list is heavy on California, France and Italy, with one of Colorado’s largest collections of Brunellos.

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There’s no need to don SKIS OR GOGGLES. All you have to do is cozy up in a heated snowcat and enjoy the SLOW AND STEADY CRAWL up the starlit mountain’s WHITE CORDUROY. WINTER WONDERLAND

From left: Chef Peccedi prepares an elegant assortment of meats and cheeses; a heated deck offers spectacular views of the Wilson Range; the restaurant is inspired by ski lodges in the Alps.

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pants unbuttoned, wine buzz strong, we always make our way back down the mountain without an ounce of guilt because we can honestly say we have earned our lunch.

The same cannot be said about dinner, which is pure indulgence. When Alpino Vino started offering dinner in 2010, the restaurant instantly became Telluride’s hardest reservation. Part of the draw is the journey. There’s no need to don skis or goggles — all you have to do is cozy up in a heated snowcat and enjoy the slow and steady crawl up the starlit mountain’s white corduroy. It’s not unusual for guests to linger three-plus hours over chef Peccedi’s five-course dinner menu. For this reason, there are only two seatings per night.

We’ve been lucky enough to score the late seating and arrive to a roaring wood-burning fireplace and glasses of Perrier-Jouët. Opening sparkling wine at nearly 12,000 feet is a dangerous task,

DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

and Shaffner jokes that he’s worn his fair share of Perrier-Joüet over the years. We sit in chairs crafted from reclaimed wine barrels and settle in to the soundtrack of Frank Sinatra. In the early days at Alpino Vino, waiters wore lederhosen and yodeled, and accordion ditties played over the speakers. Shaffner quickly steered the vibe from cheesy Alpine beer hall to sophisticated Italian Alpine wine bar, where the waiters look like they’ve flown in from Milan and each has at least an introductory certification from the Court of Master Sommeliers.

Luckily for us, Shaffner abandoned his doctoral degree in cultural anthropology and comparative religion to pursue his passion for wine. Today, Alpino Vino is one of America’s great wine experiences and one of the few places in the world you can ski in and order a $3,000 bottle of wine. At dinner, it’s best to let Shaffner and his team guide

AURELIE SLEGERS (OPPOSITE, TOP LEFT); BEN ENG (4)

the pairings. His list is heavy on Italy, California and France, particularly the Rhone Valley. He carries cult Napa cabernets like Screaming Eagle. “Our Texas clients love big, bold California trophy reds,” he says. He is in the process of building Colorado’s largest collection of Brunellos, his wine of choice, and a wine that pairs beautifully with Peccedi’s northern Italian food.

The food is hearty, yet sophisticated. We all agree the star is the finale: elk short ribs that have been braised overnight so they fall off the bone with the slightest touch of a fork. Each forkful should be paired with the accompanying wild mushroom ragout and creamy polenta for the perfect bite.

When dessert makes its way to the table, we realize we may have picked our favorite dish too hastily.

Peccedi has re-created his grandmother’s tiramisu.

We beg to know the recipe. In his Italian accent he says it’s nothing more than eggs, sugar, espresso and mascarpone. Then he bashfully admits he has to buy the ladyfingers. “We can do a lot at this altitude, but we can’t bake,” he says.

When the snowcat arrives, we load into our winter chariot. “No need for breakfast tomorrow,” my friend jokes. “We’ll still be full so we can ski straight to another lunch at Alpino Vino.”

RECIPES: ALPINO VINO CLASSICS TOMATO GORGONZOLA BISQUE 1 small diced red onion 1 diced red bell pepper 2 minced garlic cloves 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 2 ounces brandy 16 ounces canned whole peeled plum tomatoes 1 cup low-sodium tomato juice 4 ounces cream cheese 1/2 cup half-and-half 4 ounces crumbled Gorgonzola 1 teaspoon sugar 2 tablespoons chiffonade of fresh basil Salt and pepper to taste White truffle oil (optional)

GRILLED CHEESE 2 ¾-inch slices of Parmesan sourdough bread 1 ounce freshly made pesto sauce 4 quarters of oven-roasted tomatoes 2 ounces Colorado MouCo ColoRouge cheese 2 ounces buffalo mozzarella cheese ½ ounce of wild arugula Layer bread with the cheese on the bread and the other ingredients sandwiched in between. Brush with butter, and toast in a panini press.

Heat the oil in a saucepot, and sweat the onions and peppers. Add garlic and lightly caramelize. Deglaze with the brandy. Add the tomatoes and juice. Season. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. Add the cream cheese and half-and-half. Once the cheese has melted remove from the heat and cool.

Purée in blender (but not too much).

Reheat for service, check seasoning and add sugar if necessary. Add Gorgonzola and basil. Drizzle with truffle oil.

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chill out

Bundle up with these cozy, cold-weather looks that are as rugged as they are handsome PHOTOGR APH Y BY CHEY ENNE ELLIS S T Y L I N G B Y S A R A O S WA LT

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

On her: Vest by Frauenschuh. Turtleneck

by Gorsuch, Park City.

Scarf and hat by Kat Cashmere. All-mountain skis by Volkl, available at Saint Bernard Sports.

On her: Parka by Canada Goose, available at Neiman Marcus.

Ski mittens and hat by Canada Goose, available at backcountry. com. Ski pants by Bogner.

Turtleneck by Gorsuch, Park City.

ML2 ski boots by Apex, available at Saint Bernard Sports.

On him: Jacket by Canada Goose, available at Neiman Marcus. Vest by Engineered Garments. Ski pants by Spyder.

Scarf by Faliero Sarti. Goggles

by Julbo, available at REI. Hat by A.P.C., available at ByGeorge, Austin. Ski boots by Salomon.

Skis by Volkl, available at Saint Bernard Sports.

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

On her: Plaid dickey by Baja East, available at ByGeorge, Austin.

Bodysuit by Kat Cashmere. Canada Goose headband, available at backcountry.com. Goggles by Julbo, available at REI.

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

THIS PAGE: Sorel Men's boots, available at REI. Duffle bag by Filson, available at Pinto Ranch.

OPPOSITE: On her: Verteuil fox fur-trim coat by Moncler, available at Saks Fifth Avenue. Top

by Elizabeth and James, available at Nordstrom.

On him: Jacket by Canada Goose, available at Neiman Marcus. Henley by James Perse, available at Barneys.

THIS PAGE: On her: Sweater by Isabel Marant, available at ByGeorge, Austin. Leather pants by Giada Forte, available at Stanley Korshak, Dallas. Fox fur and leather lace-up boots by Moncler, available at Saks Fifth Avenue. Vintage fur hat.

On him: Sweater by Gorsuch, Park City. Shirt by Gitman Bros. and shoes by Tomas Maier, available at ByGeorge, Austin.

Blankets by Pendleton.

OPPOSITE: Sweater by Dries Van Noten, available at ByGeorge, Austin.

Jeans by Citizens of Humanity, available at Stanley Korshak, Dallas.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

On her: Sweater by Nordstrom, pajama bottoms by PJ Salvage and labradorite ring

by Lana, all available at Nordstrom. Cashmere henley

by White + Warren, available at Gorsuch, Park City.

On him: Sweater by SmartWool, available at REI. Watch by Filson and slipper by UGG Australia, both available at Neiman Marcus. Pants by AG, available at Nordstrom.

Blanket by Pendleton.

Glassware and serving pieces available at urbAna, Phoenix.

Models: Tova/Vision Los Angeles and Chad/Kim Dawson Dallas. Hair and makeup by Ashley Rae Hancock.

the ranch,

reborn

For centuries, the lush San Luis Valley in Colorado has been a home for wildlife, livestock and humans.

Today, a 103,000-acre guest ranch owned by the Nature Conservancy is ensuring its future with sustainable grazing while preserving the land

by W I L L GR AN T photography by W YN N MYE R S

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

RANGE ROVER

Since being purchased by the Nature Conservancy, Zapata Ranch has become a model for a new style of ranching, one that benefits the land, the wildlife, the livestock and the public.

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WHERE THE BUFFALO STILL ROAM

Zapata’s ecologically minded preservation of its pastures and grazing lands distinguishes it from other ranches in southern Colorado.

The San Luis Valley is the only true desert, by annual precipitation, in Colorado. Between the San Juan Mountains to the west and the Sangre de Cristo Range to the east, the valley is a north-south wedge of arid sagebrush flats, high-desert scrub and wide, sandy playas. On the east side of the valley, below the spires and serrated ridgelines of the Sangre de Cristos, prevailing westerly winds have piled up about a million years’ worth of sand into a Sahara-like dune field known today as Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

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From a geological perspective, few other valleys in the world feature the kind of landscape seen in the San Luis Valley. From a cultural perspective, no other does. The Ute Indians called the valley home and hunted bison on the wide plains. In the 16th century, Spanish explorers entered the valley from the south and established the oldest town in Colorado, San Luis, along with the state’s oldest church, just north of the town of Antonito.

Today, the best place to see and experience vestiges of the valley’s ancient character is Zapata Ranch, a 103,000-acre working guest ranch abutting Great Sand Dunes, owned by the Nature Conservancy and managed by the Colorado-based land management company Ranchlands. “The land has supported human habitation for a long time, and that’s what we’re doing here,” says Duke Phillips, CEO of Ranchlands. “We think that the land and the people can thrive together.

We’re managing the ranch in that way.”

The headquarters of Zapata Ranch sits under the twisted limbs and dappled shade of a cottonwood grove. The log buildings, originally built in the 1920s, bear much of the same designs and floor plans as their original form. But what’s most striking about the ranch, what distinguishes it from every other grazing operation in the valley, is the ecological preservation of the pastures and grazing lands.

Through a land stewardship program designed to restore the valley’s late history, Ranchlands is trying to exemplify the notion of sustainable grazing and land preservation.

The Zapata Ranch is actually two ranches: the Zapata Ranch on the south end and the Medano Ranch to the north. On the Zapata Ranch, about 200 cows, 45 saddle horses and 2,000 bison graze the grasslands and desert scrub. On the Medano Ranch’s 50,000-acre pasture, the herd of free-roaming bison dig their wallows, browse the sandy plains NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

and generally live as they did when the Utes stalked them before the Spanish arrived. Once a year, in late October, the ranch culls about 500 head of bison.

But other than that, the herd is left to restore the landscape to its natural, post-Pleistocene form.

The Nature Conservancy bought Zapata Ranch in 1999 and opened it to guests in 2009. Most people visit the ranch between the end of March and October. In the winter, the valley is often one of the coldest places in the state. Even in the summer, the climate can be cool.

Jessie Hallstrom is a native of San Diego, California, and has been working at the ranch for the past three years. On a late August morning, Hallstrom is wearing a down parka as we walk through the bison handling facilities on the Medano Ranch. The facilities, she says, were designed for the humane handling of the animals. In fact, the methods of Temple Grandin — renowned animal psychologist and professor of livestock behavior and welfare at Colorado State University — were an influence in the building of the corrals, chutes and holding pens.

“The squeeze box is the best example of Temple Grandin’s influence; it’s like a swaddle,” says Hallstrom, standing on a catwalk over the alley where, in about a month, the bison herd will thunder into the corrals to be vaccinated and about a quarter of them culled for maintaining the correct stocking number on the ranch. “Working the bison is a very special time of the year on the ranch.”

Inside the ranch headquarters, about 12 miles south of the corrals, Kate Matheson oversees the daily guest ranch operations. Matheson wears a flat, black buckaroo cowboy hat and black jeans. She looks the part — including having a cattle dog at her feet — but she’s not a Colorado native, and she didn’t grow up on a ranch. She’s from England and still retains a staunch British accent. She helps nurture Zapata Ranch’s role in Colorado preservation as a modern grazing operation open to the public and accessible to those who want to learn and be a part of Colorado’s distinct ranching heritage.

“By being in nature and immersed in day-to-day life, we find that no matter where you’re from or your

background, you are inspired by the beauty of the ranch,” Matheson says. “More often than not people leave the ranch feeling like old friends and part of the Zapata family with an insight into the importance of the preservation of these precious lands.”

The Zapata Ranch offers 15 rooms and a total of 23 beds. Guests can partake in nearly every aspect of ranch life: moving cattle, herding bison, surveying the pastureland and even fixing fences. The ranch also has a naturalist for interpretive trips into the surrounding areas and riding programs for those interested in trail rides to Sand Dunes National Park or through the bison herd. The hospitality aspect of Zapata serves to expose the public to, what many believe, is the future of rangeland management.

“Our guest services at Zapata Ranch revolve around programs based on experiencing and learning about nature and how ranching takes care of the natural resources that support it,” Phillips says. “This partnership is creating a new model for managing ranches in the West in a way that balances economics, conservation and building bridges between urban communities and the natural world, which support our work. Field days, workshops on grazing planning, monitoring, plant identification, are offered to the public and our constituencies.”

One of the ecological features of the ranch that’s probably most responsible for drawing the herds of bison and, in turn, the Utes, the Spanish and the Anglo settlers, is the grass pasturage. Even in late August, when the playas and flats are umber with the ending of summer, when the monsoons have ceased and the sun shines without shade or filter from clouds, the ranch’s grama and salt grasses are vibrant green. The whole of the San Luis Valley will be dry as tinder, but thanks to an underground aquifer, the ranch still carries its livestock on fresh grass.

“The grass is sub-irrigated,” ranch manager Brett Haas says. “The water doesn’t flow to the surface, but it reaches the grass.”

There are still places around the American West where the unique character of the land intersects with culture to form a time-space continuum that will carry, if properly cared for, the people, the animals and the environment. The east side of the San Luis Valley is such a place, and Zapata Ranch has dedicated itself to sharing that with the public.

“We ranch in many of the same ways that those before us from the beginning ranched. We remain faithful to the old ethic that if we take care of the land, it will take care of us,” Phillips says. “The major difference between us and our forefathers is that we invite people to come share our way of life so that we can join together to better protect the precious resources under our care.”

SADDLE UP

A working guest ranch, Zapata offers comfy accommodations, natural science classes, rangeland education programs and authentic cowboy experiences.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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IT

only

TAKES A SPARK.

Please ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT WILDFIRES . smokeybear.com

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

DESTINATION T H E S O U T H W E S T ’ S B E S T S M A L L T O W N S & G E TA W AY S

Sedona

COURTESY OF THE SEDONA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Fierce sunsets and iconic geology are just two of the forces that pull travelers to this wintertime desert oasis. Stephanie Pearson explores Arizona’s mystical red rock country

LATE BLOOMER

Sedona’s evocative landscape is a beautiful contradiction of grand geological formations and surprisingly delicate cacti.

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D EST I N AT I ON

In the past 16 years, my parents

Or, from March 10, 2009, on Brins Mesa West Trail: “Went to mountain top on right of Mesa, 380-degree [sic] spectacular view.”

My parents “discovered” Sedona in 1999, roughly 1,349 years after the Sinagua Indians settled among its buttes, mesas, mountaintops and secret stashes of cool springs that sit at 4,500 feet north of the dead center of what is now Arizona. Sometime in that last 1,000 years, the Sinagua gave way to Angelenos seeking solace from 10-lane freeways, snowbirds seeking refuge from shoveling driveways, and anyone who loves to watch the sun set fire to the intense blue sky, preferably with a margarita in hand.

I live most of the year in Santa Fe, which is a dreamy desert destination in its own right. But right around February, I crave the 80-degree heat, stark red landscape

seriously and likes to curate his hikes so that no guest takes the same adventure twice. That’s why he has meticulously recorded every foray in the pages of his Revised 5th Edition of Sedona Hikes by Richard and Sherry Mangum.

Dad’s notes are cryptic and entertaining, like this entry from March 6, 2004, on the Woods Canyon Trail: “Hiked to 4m point got lost. Bushwhacked and our legs looked like porcupines.” Or this from March 10, 2006, on the Turkey Creek Trail: “Cold day — 46 degrees — no lunch.”

TAKE IT OUTSIDE

Clockwise from right: An outdoor cedar shower at L’Auberge de Sedona Resort; sunset at Enchantment Resort in Boynton Canyon; cocktail hour calls for charcuterie and wine at Enchantment.

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

MARK W. LIPCZYNSKI (FOOD); COURTESY OF L’AUBERGE DE SEDONA (SHOWER); MARK BOISCL AIR (PATIO)

have spent 99 weeks between January and April hiking amid the red rocks of Sedona. They’ve logged a grand total of 3,564 miles, wearing out a half-dozen pairs of hiking boots in the process. No one is officially counting the miles, but my dad takes his position as “Trail Boss”

TRAIL RIDE

SEDONA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (GALLERIES), CL AY MCL ACHL AN (BIKES), ISTOCK (SIGN)

Clockwise from right: Mountain bikers will find a terrain every bit as diverse and challenging as Moab; mission accomplished on the trail; Uptown Sedona’s galleries and shops.

and quality of play that can be had in Sedona, especially in the winter. I’ve spent roughly 20 weeks here with an ever-revolving cast of friends and family. My memories include carrying nieces and nephews in baby backpacks, all six of whom can now corner singletrack on a mountain bike better than I can; getting lost in philosophy while hiking with a theologian friend who has since died of cancer; sipping Sardinian Cannonau creekside at L’Auberge de Sedona Resort with a 1970s supermodel and her author boyfriend; and meeting an airplane mechanic-turnedvagabond mountain biker who had a beard to his waist and was on a mission to ride in every state.

Some say that Sedona has four main vortexes — areas of heightened spiritual and metaphysical energy. I would argue, however, that all of Sedona and the surrounding Coconino National Forest are one giant zone of magic

— from the well-worn path around Bell Rock to the solitary mountain bike spur trail, Western Civilization, to the fire crackling on the outdoor patio of Enchantment Resort. In each of these places, in very different ways, I’ve felt awe.

A few years ago, Jose, a photographer friend who happens to be deaf, was passing through Sedona on his way to Yosemite. He asked me to take him to the best vantage point from which to photograph the sunset. My plan was unoriginal: We hiked 4 miles to the saddle of 4,921-foot Cathedral Rock, a striking formation with 50 shades of red sandstone and rock pinnacles that jut like a hand hundreds of feet into the sky. To reach the saddle requires a vertical scramble up the smooth red sandstone, where footing can be tricky and a tumble can mean broken bones or worse. This iconic vista is one of the most

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D EST I N AT I ON

RED, WHITE AND A STUNNING VIEW

photographed in the United States, but we had the place to ourselves, arriving just in time to watch the sun torch the sky, sending light rays of sublime pink and orange bleeding across the horizon.

Because my sign language skills are nonexistent, Jose and I had to communicate via scribbles on a yellow legal pad.

“I’m highly visual,” Jose wrote. I was so caught up watching him joyfully click away on his Canon that I didn’t think about how difficult it might be for us to navigate our way back to the parking lot in the dark.

Neither of us came prepared with headlamps and by the time Jose finished photographing the sky, the sun had dropped below the horizon. I panicked as I felt my way over the red rocks one step at a time. Jose, on the other hand hiked behind me like a sure-footed mountain goat, practically skipping down the rock, kicking up red dust as

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

we nearly ran back to the car.

As we were wolfing down salads at the ChocolaTree, a vegan restaurant in Sedona that has a 100 percent organic menu and a display case full of truffles made on-site from Ecuadorean cacao, I asked Jose how he could see so well in the dark.

“A deaf person is born sensitive to vibrations,” he wrote.

“If you put your foot on the ground, I can feel it, so I just followed your vibration back to the car.”

I thought about his response for a while and realized that Jose’s way of being is similar to the sensation I feel when I’m in Sedona. Its clear beauty pares life down to the simplest elements, so I can screen out the distractions and focus on the connections, or vibrations, that matter the most.

Now that my dad is 80 years old, he doesn’t hike with the same force he used to. But that hasn’t stopped him from setting some serious goals. This year’s is to retrace, for once, a trek up Sterling Pass. Starting unceremoniously

COURTESY OF THE SEDONA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

The monolithic Bell Rock formation rises above snow-dusted ponderosa pines and twisted cottonwoods.

BEAUTY in many forms.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 • DORADO

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DEST I N AT I ON

Give the GIFT of BIG ADVENTURES.

ROCKY ROAD

Sterling Pass challenges hikers with a steep ascent — but rewards with formations like Vultee Arch.

at a small trailhead off of State Route 89A, the hike isn’t obvious and is less loved than so many others closer to town. Perhaps it’s also because the trail rises 1,000 feet in 1.65 miles. As the aforementioned guidebook says, “This is a true mountain pass.”

My parents and I last hiked Sterling two years ago.

When I saw the immediate incline, I was a little nervous to set out with two people whose collective age was 149 years. But being the well-seasoned hikers that they are, my parents took the steep grade at their own pace, their hiking poles tapping away at the slick rock in a slow, rhythmic beat. They stopped every so often to gaze in awe at the red sandstone cliffs towering above the ponderosa pine. At the precipitous switchbacks, my dad would climb each boulder step, wait for my mom to catch up, then reach his hand out to gently pull her up and over the rocks.

We eventually reached the top, a small notch with a flat boulder big enough for the three of us. My mom unpacked our trail lunch — the familiar sandwiches, grapes, carrots and homemade chocolate and peanut butter cookies that have been fueling us here for more than a dozen years. We munched in silence, enjoying the sun and our small accomplishment. I didn’t read Dad’s notes from this particular hike, but I would imagine the entry would read something like, “A beast of an uphill, but one hell of a view.”

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

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M Y DOR A DO THE WAVE, COYOTE BUTTES NORTH, ARIZONA

When I look at photographs from the Mars rover, I see a place that feels like home, that reminds me of the canyons where we went camping when I was little. Growing up, I couldn’t wait to leave the Southwest. Now, it’s a place that I feel an almost gravitational pull toward — the colors of the desert haunt me.

S T E L L A M A R I A BA E R , A N A RT I S T W H O G R E W U P I N SA N TA F E AND NOW EXPLORES THE DESERT THROUGH HER WORK

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DORADO • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015

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Photograph by Abby Mortenson

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D O R A D O • M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 5