When you step into The Little Nell, you step into your home away from home. That’s how it’s always felt to me over the years I’ve lived in Aspen and worked at the Limelight Hotels, sister properties to The Nell. I spent 11 years with the Limelight, most recently as regional general manager for the Aspen and Snowmass locations, before joining The Nell as general manager in July of 2022.
Every hotelier dreams of being a general manager one day, and to be the GM of a Five-Star, Five-Diamond property is the ultimate dream come true. It’s truly an honor to be the steward of this special place, and I look forward to greeting those of you who I know already and meeting those of you who I don’t know just yet.
Hospitality is about caring. My passion is to care for each and every person who journeys through our hotel. I’ve been nicknamed “Mr. Hospitality” for my appreciation for all things surrounding service and attention to detail, and I sincerely enjoy connecting with our team and with you, our esteemed guests. My favorite way to start the day is walking the property, visiting with our concierges and chefs, saying hello to everyone enjoying breakfast in Element 47, and sitting fireside in the Living Room. I also love to ski and, of course, après-ski, which The Nell has perfected with The Wine Bar in winter and Ajax Tavern in the spring.
I look forward to seeing you this ski season and hope you enjoy our latest edition of Après, The Little Nell’s custom publication that highlights the culture, community, and charm of Aspen.
Warm regards,
Henning Rahm General Manager
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Backcountry Bliss
At the 10th Mountain Division Huts, the gift of seclusion comes with a responsibility to future generations.
Tales of Place
An Aspen literary institution embarks on a new chapter in its storied history.
Behind the Scenes
Known for showcasing worldclass talent from around the globe, Aspen Film still holds strong to its local roots. 102
Over the Moon
A backcountry skier recounts a vibrant night of skinning under the stars.
A Silver Queen
Two history buffs honor Nellie Bird, the forgotten grande dame of Ashcroft.
Heaven in a Wild Flower
To understand why artist James Surls makes work in rural Carbondale, one must only take a look outside.
Wanderlusting with Gray Malin
The fine art photographer talks travel, his love for Aspen, and photo-worthy moments.
112
On Top of the World with Muffin Dole
Hear from the sociable skibum on the heels of her nearly two-decade reign as “Queen of Strudel” at Bonnie’s Restaurant. 120
Cracking Jokes with Mariam T
San Diego’s crankiest drag queen spills party stories from Aspen Gay Ski Week.
132
Rahm Reveals
General Manager Henning Rahm shares a few of his go-to’s in Aspen
134
Best in Glass
From the team behind the award-winning Somm films comes SOMM TV.
136
Seize the Slopes
Guests of The Nell turn to lead ski concierge Ray McNutt for memorable moments on the mountain.
140
The Sweet Spot
The Little Nell and ASPENX welcome Ladurée to town.
144
The Last Word with Luky Seymour
Get to know ASPENX Mountain Club’s affable membership director.
Episode 06: Heaven in a Wild Flower
Step inside the studio of Carbondale artist James Surls to learn how life in the Roaring Fork Valley informs his monumental, nature-inspired sculptures.
For more episodes from Season 2 of Après TV, tune in to Channel 1 inroom at The Little Nell, and be on the lookout for next season of Après for more stories of Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley.
thelittlenell.com
Mountaineering by moonlight.
A backcountry skier recounts a vibrant night of skinning under the stars.
From the deck of the McNamara Hut seven miles outside of Aspen, I watch the faint glow of headlamps move up the darkened slope in the distance. My friends have gotten a head start on the night’s expedition to the top of Bald Knob, an 11,000-foot summit adjacent to the hut.
We venture here each winter to ski under the full moon. Aided by our backcountry gear—lightweight skis, bindings that allow us to walk in the snow, and nylon skins that we stick to our ski bases to prevent the skis from sliding backward—we’re able to ascend the slopes of Bald Knob on foot and ski back down.
I put on my backpack, switch on my headlamp, and lay my skis down on the snow. I click in to my bindings and start up the skin track. As my skins slide across the snow, I focus on my breathing—step, inhale, step, exhale—timing my movement and breath as if I were in a yoga class or meditation session. I think about my stride, carefully sliding my skis forward on the surface of the snow rather than lifting them off the ground. I remind myself that efficiency matters. Moving your legs and feet like a Nordic cross-country skier requires less effort and is less tiring than navigating the incline like a hiker.
Full-moon nights call for skinning, or using special ski bindings and adhesive skins to access the best of the backcountry.
Over the Moon Text by Ted Mahon Images by Ann Driggers and Nico Enos
Once I settle into a rhythm, I switch off my headlamp and allow the moon to illuminate my path forward. The forest and night sky, formerly obscured by my headlamp’s bright, artificial light, slowly come into view as my eyes adjust to the darkness. I begin to make out different ski lines cutting between the wellspaced evergreens. Finally, the objective presents itself—a night of skiing among the moonlit glades. But first, we have to get to the top of the slope.
I continue along the skin track, meandering through the sparse trees. The route makes wide switchbacks where the slope steepens, much like a summer trail ascends a headwall. I catch up to my friends, and together we continue moving up the hill with our lights off. The night is calm and still, and we proceed wordlessly up the mountain, content to take in our surroundings in silence. It’s cold out, but the heat of my exertion counters the winter night’s chill. Any hesitation I felt leaving the warm hut for this chilly nighttime outing suddenly seems like a distant memory.
Arriving at the broad, open summit of Bald Knob, we’re met with few trees, expansive views, and not a breath of wind. By now, we’re well adjusted to the moonlight and can identify the silhouettes of mountains on the horizon: the Maroon Bells, Mount Daly, Hayden Peak. Constellations hang low in the sky, visible above the faint lights of Aspen dotting the valley down below.
A chill creeps in as we begin to cool off from our trek uphill, so we put on a few layers before preparing for the return journey down the mountain. We remove our skins, adjust our touring bindings to downhill mode, and buckle our boots. We plan to stay close to the skin track on our descent. There’s little avalanche risk on low-angled slopes, and it’s smarter and safer to stick to familiar terrain rather than wander off and get lost. The snow was light and soft on the way up, which tells us the skiing conditions downhill will be good. We figure that as we make our way down the slope, the lights from the hut will serve as a beacon leading us back where we began, to our campmates gathered around the cozy fireplace.
All that’s left to do is ski. I switch on my headlamp, then glance around and promptly turn it off, realizing I can see the terrain ahead better without it. Others in the group agree— there is enough natural light to ski by moonlight. We push off, one after another, schussing down through the gleaming snow, guided only by the light of the night sky. We glide down the mountain, cutting turns around the spruce and fir trees, the night crisp and vivid yet surreal as a dream.
Two history buffs honor Nellie Bird, the forgotten grande dame of Ashcroft.
Bird stands in 1886 near the mining claim that inspired the naming of
Early on in Aspen’s 14-year silver boom, before it came to be known in the Victorian era as “ Silver Queen City ” for its brief moment as the country’s largest producer of the precious metal, it seemed that a different boomtown 11 miles away might have claimed the title. Eager to capitalize on silver deposits newly discovered in the Castle Creek Valley, prospectors from nearby Leadville flocked to the area in 1880 to establish the mining camp later known as Ashcroft.
According to accounts by the Aspen Historical Society—a nonprofit that manages both Ashcroft and Independence Ghost Town, along with the Wheeler/Stallard Museum, the Holden/Marolt Mining & Ranching Museum, and the largest public archive in the region—the area exploded to a population of about 2,000 by 1883, outpacing Aspen and fueling rapid infrastructure and industry, including two newspapers, a school, sawmills, a small smelter, and 20 saloons.
But Ashcroft’s initially promising silver deposits proved shallow, and plans to build a rail line to the supply town of Crested Butte never came to fruition. Ashcroft went bust by 1885, after a rich strike was discovered near Aspen in 1884. The town’s last resident, Jack Leahy, left in 1935, and Ashcroft has stood abandoned ever since.
Nellie The Little Nell hotel.
Ashcroft’s two remaining saloons as they stood in 1980 and 1981.
the
Collections.
Photos courtesy of Aspen Historical Society’s Mary Eshbaugh Hayes and Aspen Times
The town’s boom-and-bust history has fascinated countless locals and visitors, but none more so than Rob Fedor and Peter Starck, amateur historians who have spent the last decade unraveling a more thorough origin story of Ashcroft. The duo were first enchanted by Ashcroft and its surrounding mountains in 1975, the same year it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, though they didn’t know each other at the time. (Fedor, then 21 and a new resident of Aspen, and Starck, then 11 and on an annual family ski trip to Snowmass, wouldn’t meet for another 40-odd years.)
Unmoored after narrowly missing the draft back home in Ohio, Fedor had moved to Aspen and been spending a few years working odd jobs around town, earning his keep as a photographer, construction framer, and silkscreen printer, among other vocations, before he left to find work in other parts of the country. But Fedor never forgot Ashcroft. He’s now based in Florida, where his retirement project is building a replica model of both the exterior and interior of some 30 buildings that lined Castle Avenue during Ashcroft’s prime.
“My years living in Aspen were just enough to lock my heart up,” Fedor says, though he hasn’t returned to Ashcroft since he left the valley in the late ’70s. “But in my workshop, I get to walk the streets of Ashcroft every day. It’s like I’m there.”
It was only in 2016 that Fedor came to know of Starck, a construction engineer in Wisconsin whose efforts to piece together lesser-known aspects of Ashcroft’s past landed him in an article in The Aspen Times. Fedor read that Starck had begun doubting the commonly accepted name of a town landmark known as Hotel View; the hotel was Fedor’s starting point for constructing his replica model of the town, so he contacted Starck, and the two became close collaborators.
“We’re always sharing information back and forth and working for one good, common goal, which is trying to honor people who have been overlooked,” Fedor says. “I couldn’t do any of this without Peter.”
It was upon studying old photographs of the hotel that Fedor noticed the building’s bird and birdcage motifs,
At right, Ashcroft residents gather for a Fourth of July picnic in 1910. Above, the first snowfall of the season near Ashcroft; photo courtesy of Aspen Historical Society, Chamberlain Collection.
Snapshots of
captured over the decades, including a celebration following the 1974
Ashcroft restoration of Nellie Bird’s landmark hotel, pictured at left. Photos courtesy of Aspen Historical Society and the Aspen Historical Society’s Cassatt, Grover, and Masterson Estate Collections.a clue that led the men to a woman named Nellie Bird. “There is no connection between Nellie Bird and the original naming of the Little Nell claim on Aspen Mountain, but there are two photographs of her from 1887 in the Aspen Historical Society archives standing very close to it, and another showing her arriving in a wagon,” Starck says. “I was able to identify her in two of them, and Rob found her in the third.”
Fedor and Starck eventually determined that Nellie Bird was a dairy rancher who acquired 176 acres of ranchland in the North Star Nature Preserve on Aspen’s east end after moving to the area from Leadville around 1801. “I’ve been able to identify her in photos due to a noticeable lean from a very serious back condition and noticeable ailments with her hands,” Starck says. “She also had an ailing father and ailing son to care for. Still, she persevered, accomplishing nearly everything herself, and with very little, if any, fanfare.”
With an additional interest in the potential riches of Ashcroft, Bird also set up lodging there, later hiring builder Edmund C. Hawkins to construct the prominent boarding house commonly referred to today as Hotel View but known during its years of operation, the men concluded, as the Bird House. Yet despite swiftly securing her standing within the maledominated mining community as one of
The Bird House hotel appears in the backdrop of this photograph shot in Ashcroft in 1950.
a rare breed of single-mother pioneers (her first husband abandoned her after they moved West from Chicago; her second husband, Henry Bird, left her after only a year of marriage), Bird has been largely left off the list of local legends credited with the success of the era, however short lived.
Bird died at her ranch in 1913 and was buried at an unknown location at Aspen Grove Cemetery, a site comprised partly of land from Bird’s ranch. Few know of Bird’s astute foresight and enduring contributions to the area, Starck says, and he believes there are myriad others whose stories are still missing from the history of Ashcroft: “At this point, I still feel as though I have just started to rediscover the true history of my favorite place on Earth.”
“I’m hoping one day that I’ll find a home for the replica models of Ashcroft,” Fedor adds. “I’d like to see them end up in the right place, where they can educate and do some good. There’s so much undone, so much to tell, that I think I’ll probably be working on this until the day I die.”
Clearing storm on a cold winter morning at Garrett Peak.
Heaven in a Wild Flower
Text by Paddy O’Connell
Images by Benjamin Rasmussen and Trevor Triano
To understand why world-renowned artist James Surls chooses to make work in rural Carbondale, one must only take a look outside.
When I think of a world-famous artist, I picture a beret and round tortoise-shell glasses that cost more than I spend on groceries in a year. I hear a transatlantic accent and lofty ten-dollar words, the meanings of which are lost on a T-shirtand-jeans guy like me. But when I meet James Surls, a prolific and beloved sculptor, poet, and visual artist based in Carbondale, Colorado, I find that caricature could not be further from the truth. To my surprise, Surls and his art are rooted in things much more familiar.
It’s early one morning on one of those cool days when summer and fall finally overlap, and I’m seated across the table from Surls. By “across the table,” I mean “on a Zoom call”—Surls is at his other home in Texas, a 185-acre ranch in the Splendora woods northeast of Houston. He is there clearing trees and manicuring a path through the forest for an art show he and his wife, artist Charmaine Locke, will debut on Earth Day 2023. He is eager to talk to me about his connection to all landscapes and nature, and about his love for the Roaring Fork Valley.
“The worst view out there is about a nine-nine,” he tells me with an endearing drawl that falls out of the side of his mouth like a body sinking into a comfy chair at the end of a long day outdoors. “There’s a few tens here and there and yonder, but my god, there’s not a bad view. If you don’t like living in the Roaring Fork Valley, it’s your fault.”
Surls has lived in the RFV since 1997 but has kept his Texas home, studio, and roots intact. With his white hair and beard and tender, childlike eyes that belie his 79 years, he has the rugged look of Ernest Hemingway but the smile and warmth of a mall Santa, and the way he speaks about his art is just as approachable. “It revolves around a sense of place,” he tells me. “I say you have to breathe deep the river, you have to breathe deep the mountain, you have to inhale the atmosphere and the sensibility of where you are.”
What Surls exhales is shocking and lovely. He has been described as a buckeye surrealist master. I get a firsthand, kick-you-in-the-gut experience with his work when his daughter Eva, Surls’ manager and personal assistant, gives me a tour of his Carbondale studio. Upon entering, she observes my visceral reaction to the spectacle inside and responds: “Yeah, I know.”
Surls’ latest piece looms before us. Enormous wooden flowers sprout from steel stems that Surls has affixed to a 125-year-old Northern California redwood burl the size of a Tuff Shed. Their petals vary in size, ranging from the length of my arm to nearly that of a helicopter rotor. I ask Eva about her father, but I’m distracted by the behemoth that towers 20-plus feet above us, dwarfing its surroundings.
The studio itself is a sight to behold: Framed prints are on display beside chains, pneumatic lifts, and welding implements; sculptures hang from I-beams and fill the tabletops alongside hatchets and horse files. Yes, it is a studio, but it is a garage shop by any other name, the cleanest and bestsmelling one I’ve ever been in.
The combination of order and creative calamity inside the studio is Surls’ character personified. He keeps the same schedule and wears the same work boots, worn blue jeans, red suspenders, and Wrangler shirt every day, a product of the work ethic and sense of routine instilled in him as a boy, when he was tasked with rising before the sun to milk the cows at his childhood home in Texas. As I stand staring at the wood and steel wonders surrounding me in his shop, I recall what Surls told me about his creative process. “Just go to work, period,” he says. “I make art regardless of where I am. It doesn’t make any difference. I could be in a field out in Kansas and I still make art.”
When I admit to Eva that her father’s blue-collar approach makes me like him and his artwork even more, she smiles like I am telling her something she has heard many times before. “People resonate with my dad and his work because he functions outside the norms of the art world,” she says. “He’s just a working guy. If you saw him down at the co-op in his pickup truck, you’d never think he is a world-class artist. You’d think he was a rancher or a plumber. But you come here, and you know why he’s shown at the Guggenheim and the MoMA.”
There are those in the world in the highest of learned positions who would ask, “Of what truth and of which truth and of whose truth do you speak?”
As an artist I answer all by saying simply, “My truth.”
—James Surls, in an excerpt from James Surls: From the Heartland
I’m no art critic, but I do know beauty and emotion. You can’t help but feel something when confronted with a James Surls piece. It is the same reaction you might have when encountering the jaw-dropping magnificence of the valley where he lives and works. Somehow, with his wood and his steel, his poetry and his hands, Surls captures this sublime landscape in his work.
“From our kitchen window, we can see the top of Sopris,” Surls says. “We can see McClure Pass. We can see Chair Mountain, the tip of Mount Daly, and Capitol Peak. I can look up the valley and see a thunderstorm coming from Aspen, or one coming through the Crystal Valley. If that doesn’t affect you, then you’re blind. You’re not breathing deep where you are. Well, I am totally there. I conjure from the trees, the rivers, the rocks. That is my muse. That’s my source.”
At the 10th Mountain Division Huts, the gift of seclusion and untouched wilderness comes with a responsibility to future generations.
Countless adventurers have sought shelter in the 10th Mountain Division Huts on their sojourns into Colorado’s sprawling backcountry.
Journeying to a backcountry hut in the middle of winter is nothing short of magical. I try to go on several such trips each year, skiing through forests and high-alpine meadows on alpine touring gear, the snow glittering like thousands of tiny diamonds and the shuffle of my skis—and, perhaps, easy conversation with friends—the only sound for miles. One of my favorite moments is when a hint of smoke reaches my nose, signaling that the hut, with its welcoming wood-burning stove, is close by.
Once at the hut, there’s a unique satisfaction that comes from swapping out sweaty layers for dry ones, laying out my sleeping bag on a bed, helping stoke the fire in the stove, and settling in with snacks and wine for games, storytelling, and laughs. For the next day or two, my friends and I will immerse ourselves in the vast wilderness surrounding the hut, making turns in pillowy, untracked powder on open slopes or in protected glades, depending on snow and avalanche conditions.
I’m not alone in my appreciation for these secluded, off-the-grid accommodations. “Getting into nature in the wintertime is a really special thing,” says local gallery director and marketing specialist Claire de L’Arbre, who has seen the demand for hut reservations soar since she started regularly planning hut trips a decade ago. “It feels very luxurious to sit in a cabin with your friends 7 miles from civilization and still have lights and a propane stove.”
Colorado is home to several backcountry hut systems, including the 14 huts owned by the 10th Mountain Division Hut Association, part of a network of 34 remote refuges connected by 350 miles of trails in the central Colorado Rockies. They were conceived by legendary Aspen architect Fritz Benedict, who modeled them after huts he encountered in the European Alps while serving in the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division during World War II.
He and other Aspenites founded the association in 1980, naming it in honor of the fallen soldiers of the 10th, and the first huts, McNamara and Margy’s, were completed two years later.
Since then, countless adventurers have sought shelter in these huts on their sojourns into Colorado’s sprawling backcountry. “We are always inspired by the simplicity of life on a hut trip,” says Aspen naturalist Rebecca Weiss, who has been bringing her two children on hut trips with her husband, Austin, since the children were toddlers. “It’s pared back to the essentials, and digital stuff is out of the picture. We love how that feels and always aspire to simplify regular life back at home.”
As climate change affects the Rocky Mountains, however, warmer temperatures and shorter winters threaten the likelihood of winter hut trips. These days, visitors who used to ski in for late November or early December trips are just as likely to find themselves hiking part of the way, skis
on their backpacks, for lack of snow. Ski mountaineers who use the huts to access the high peaks in April and even early May are finding their favorite lines melted away much earlier in the year. And the hugely increased threat of wildfire all over Colorado could have a devastating impact on the huts; in summer 2021, a fire that started at a nearby state park claimed 4,000 acres of land only a few miles from two of the 10th Mountain Huts.
In response to these exponentially growing impacts of climate change— and knowing that hut users tend to demonstrate a heightened sense of stewardship and awareness of their surroundings—the 10th Mountain Division Hut Association’s board of directors initiated a formal effort known as the 10th Mountain Climate Project in 2019. The project aims to share actionable information on environmental concerns in the region, make the association’s business operations more sustainable, and increase resource efficiency at the huts.
“We try to make sure that what we do is thoughtful and consistent with our mission,” says 10th Mountain Division Hut Association Executive Director Ben Dodge. “We don’t want to be preachy about this.”
One of the first steps was commissioning CLEER, a Carbondale-based energy nonprofit, to come up with a plan to reduce carbon emissions at the huts as well as at 10th Mountain’s administrative office in Aspen and its operations base in Leadville. The association began by implementing changes close to home, working with the local Community Office for Resource Efficiency to cover part of the cost of retrofitting its three 30-year-old employee-housing units in Aspen with rooftop solar panels and converting from natural gas to almost 100 percent electric in July 2022. Other measures include switching out the huts’ CFL light bulbs for more efficient LED lights and finding ways to reduce firewood consumption, including drilling wells near some of the huts so that visitors aren’t as reliant on the wood-burning stoves to melt snow for water.
Part of the 10th Mountain Climate Project focuses on continued wildfire mitigation, which the hut association has been practicing in earnest for almost 20 years. Tactics range from clearing dead trees and brush to making the surrounding
forest more resilient against drought. This past summer, the association received grant funding to equip each hut with giant rolls of flame-resistant fabric that can be wrapped around the structure to help ward off wildfire.
One of the 10th Mountain Climate Project’s top priorities, however, is also its simplest: inspiring climate action among the hut system’s community of backcountry skiers. The huts have long stocked a mix of field guides and naturalist literature to foster self-reliance among visitors as well as a deeper understanding of the environment around them, and last winter, a new title was added to the shelves: The World’s Littlest Book on Climate, which Dodge calls “the coolest book a person can read in about five minutes.”
Eventually, Dodge envisions the hut association becoming more actively involved in promoting climate-friendly legislation, too. “Us changing our employee housing is not going to change the world, but policy will,” he says.
Hut-goers know that in addition to reveling in the magic of these backcountry havens, there’s work to be done to keep them in good shape for the next group, from restocking firewood and shoveling snow to taking small, forward-thinking measures to ensure the huts can be enjoyed for years to come. “When you stay at a hut, you have the responsibility of taking care of it and leaving it just right, if not nicer than the way you found it,” Weiss says. “It’s an analogy for how we need to treat the earth—taking care of it for the next generation and, hopefully, leaving it a better place.”
An Aspen literary institution embarks on a new chapter in its storied history and recommends regional reads from past and present.
With a patrician pedigree and a ski-bum intellectual’s bearing, Katharine Thalberg welcomed readers into Explore Booksellers as the shop’s devoted owner for more than 30 years, inviting others to share in the joy of, as she once described it, “the heady thrill of opening a new, virginal book and plunging into its story, following wherever the author might lead, a willing captive, as stowaway.” Today, people are still making the pilgrimage from across town and around the world to Explore Booksellers because of the trust and adoration earned by its late founder.
General Manager Jason Jefferies, who took the helm in June 2022, has heard from countless locals about the extraordinary vision, values, and commitment to community that Thalberg infused into the bookstore. “It’s an important part of what we do, fulfilling a community’s trust in someone to recommend books to them,” says Jefferies, who came to Aspen from Raleigh, North Carolina, where he
Since 1975, Explore Booksellers has stood as an intellectual hub of the community.
managed an independent bookstore and ran the North Carolina Book Festival. “It’s this amazing technology where you can stare at a piece of paper and it puts you in the mind of someone you never knew, or experiences you might never have. I think that’s a magical thing, and spreading that enthusiasm benefits everyone in the long term.”
Thalberg, daughter of Hollywood legend Irving Thalberg, founded Explore in 1975 and set up shop soon after in a Victorian-era home on Main Street. “There were at least five bookstores here back then,” recalls bookseller Susan Barbour, a longtime customer who frequented the shop in its early days as a burgeoning intellectual hub of the community. Explore hosted book talks with literary lions and local authors as it also evolved into a moral beacon and political incubator under the influence of Thalberg and her husband, Bill Stirling, who was elected mayor of Aspen in 1983. Animal rights activists, the couple opened the town’s first vegetarian restaurant on the second floor of the shop and led efforts to ban the local sale of animal fur.
But even in a literary place like Aspen, where bookish interests are met with the same reverence as on-mountain pursuits, local bookstores thinned over the decades, shuttering one by one in the Amazon era until Explore was the last one standing in 2009. Thalberg had continued to manage the shop until her death in 2006; in 2007, her family sold it to part-time Aspen residents Sam and Cheryl Wyly, billionaires who sought to preserve Thalberg’s legacy but gave it up in the wake of a federal tax fraud prosecution brought upon Sam and his
brother, Charles Wyly, in 2010. When the Wylys put the space on the market in 2014, it appeared Aspen would lose its beloved—and last remaining— bookstore. Then, early the following year, the nonprofit Public Interest Network stepped in and bought it for $4.6 million.
Headquartered in Denver, the Public Interest Network supports and operates a national network of organizations that work for social and environmental action in all 50 states. For decades, it has hosted an annual staff ski trip to Aspen, during which time its team fell in love with Explore and with Thalberg’s mission.
Since taking up the baton of sustaining her invaluable contribution, the nonprofit has stoically weathered the hurdles of the pandemic—selling books by phone order for more than a year while its doors were closed—and is now looking to revive the shop’s identity as a thriving gathering place for readers and thinkers in the Aspen community.
The Explore events team, led by Director of Programming Jeff Bernstein, a retired Public Interest Network attorney who joined Explore in October 2021, is aiming to use the second floor—vacated by Pyramid Bistro in fall 2022—to host a full calendar of highprofile and local-interest book signings and talks. “We want people to think of Explore as a place where things happen,” Bernstein says.
He started with local authors, and this summer hosted book signings with Aspen memoirists like bartender-turnedpreacher Jerry Herships. “The number
of authors between here and Grand Junction is stupendous,” says Bernstein, who has continued the bookshop’s longstanding book-selling partnership with the Aspen Institute and has hosted in-store talks with bestselling authors such as Anne-Marie Slaughter and Congressman Adam Schiff. Meanwhile, Jefferies keeps a finger on the pulse of the literary world through his podcast, Bookin’, which he has hosted independently since 2018 and now produces in collaboration with Explore.
Among the first locals to come into Explore and welcome Jefferies to town were authors Daniel Joseph Watkins and Mary Dominick-Coomer, whose titles are among Explore’s ever-evolving collection of local and regional books. Explore’s best seller since late summer has been a magisterially illustrated new edition of Aspen Times columnist Peggy Clifford’s indispensable 1980 classic, To Aspen and Back , revived this year by Watkins’ independent publishing house, Meat Possum Press. Long out of print, the book tracks the history of Aspen from its pre-ski-town days through its countercultural heyday in the 1970s, ending on an ominously bitter note about the materialism that gripped Aspen—and America—at the dawn of the 1980s. “I’m making sure that’s a staple,” says Barbour, who has been recommending it to the wave of
recently minted Aspenites arriving to town as part of the pandemic’s urban exodus. “With all the new people who moved in, it’s really nice to give them this as our history.”
The local-interest section includes a nearly complete collection of the works of legendary gonzo journalist and Woody Creek resident Hunter S. Thompson. Jefferies recommends Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone, the magazine’s collection of Thompson’s seminal writing, including his famed 1970 article, “The Battle of Aspen,” which chronicles Thompson’s flamboyant run for Pitkin County sheriff. (Also on the shelves is Watkins’ Freak Power: Hunter S. Thompson’s Campaign for Sheriff, a deep-dive into that period in Aspen.)
You can also delve into the works of novelist James Salter, who lived in Aspen’s West End for more than four decades until his death in 2015. Best known for the sensual novel A Sport and a Pastime, Salter’s posthumous 2017 nonfiction collection, Don’t Save Anything , includes some of the most beautiful depictions of Aspen ever committed to print, and his recipebased memoir, Life is Meals , co-written with his wife, Kay Salter, boasts colorful anecdotes from the Salters’ legendary Aspen dinner parties.
Other favorites from the team at Explore include Sally Barlow-Perez’s A History of Aspen (“The funny thing is, she didn’t live here that long, but she got it,” Barbour says), Mary Eshbaugh Hayes’ anthology The Story of Aspen , and Paul Andersen’s Aspen: Body, Mind & Spirit: In Celebration of the Aspen Idea
The store even stocks a number of selfpublished gems, including Sanctuaries in the Snow, the late David Wood’s guide to the makeshift shrines hidden in the forested ski areas of Aspen and Snowmass, and The Infamous vs. the Notorious, Susan McCoy’s vivid chronicle of the wild and radical period spanning the 1970s and 1980s in Aspen. These titles sit comfortably on Explore’s shelves next to damning and discomfiting academic books such as Jenny Stuber’s 2021 economic inequality study, Aspen and the American Dream.
A recent addition to the Aspen canon is bluegrass artist Sandy Munro’s 2022 memoir, Aspen Unstrung , which colorfully recounts the author’s experience building a home with his wife, Mary Lynn, as well as their decades running the Great Divide music shop on Monarch Street, a like-minded hub of local culture that operated just around the corner from Explore. “Our timing was more than fortuitous,” Munro writes. “We got to live in the best of times in the best of places, and we have nothing to complain about.”
the Scenes
Known for showcasing world-class talent from around the globe, Aspen Film still holds strong to its local roots.
Clockwise from below: Behind-the-scenes of The Theory of Everything (Academy Screenings 2014). Student filmmaker Tito Schafer at a Film Camp screening in August 2022. Director
the
and courtesy
Often referred to as Aspen’s skiing-boom era, the 1960s and 1970s brought flocks of visitors to the mountain town in search of recreation, cultural events, and powder. The downtown streets were paved, lifts at Snowmass ski area began operation, the first official Aspen Alpine World Cup races were held, and the Aspen Art Museum opened its doors. It was also around the time when Ellen Hunt arrived in town from Los Angeles, recently separated from film producer Pancho Kohner.
Although many local arts organizations were getting started at that time, it wasn’t long before Hunt saw a gap in the community when it came to film. A champion of the arts, she was also aware of the many talented independent filmmakers not getting the attention and exposure they deserved. Together with co-founders Gail Holstein and Carol Rudolph, she organized the first Filmfest at Paepcke Auditorium in 1979, adopting the slogan “Independent by Nature” to reflect a focus on screening independently made and independently produced films.
Taika Waititi on set of Jojo Rabbit (Filmfest 2019). Photos by Todd DosSantos of Piki and Working Title Films.In the early days, Filmfest was run entirely by volunteers, and many of the screenings and after-parties took place in Hunt’s home until she started regularly working with venues such as the Wheeler Opera House. “Ellen never wanted it to be a festival that had a lot of notoriety,” says Susan Wrubel, executive and artistic director of Aspen Film since 2017. “It was more for the locals.”
Filmfest remains the organization’s flagship event, known for bringing a curated mix of acclaimed films from the international festival circuit, often before they’ve debuted in other U.S. markets. Hunt continued to run the organization until 1995, launching an additional two film festivals that helped make Aspen a destination for emerging filmmakers and industry insiders alike. Shortsfest, a competitive short film festival in the spring, is one of only four Oscar-qualifying festivals dedicated exclusively to short film. The end-ofyear showcase Academy Screenings in December puts awards contenders in front of voting members of the Academy and other guilds as they descend upon Aspen for ski season.
After stepping down from her full-time director position, Hunt continued to serve Aspen Film in an advisor role for the next 25 years. Wrubel recalls that Hunt seemed wary of her when she first took the helm of the organization, but they became fast friends and remained close until Hunt’s passing in 2021. “Because of Ellen, a lot of doors were opened to me within this community,” Wrubel says. “I was really brought into the old guard from the beginning, which made a huge difference in my experience with the organization.”
Aspen Film Executive and Artistic Director Susan Wrubel (right) has worked in independent cinema for more than 30 years.
Stills and behind-the-scenes photos
of recent Aspen Film selections, pictured clockwise from top right: Aftersun, Close, Ousmane, Deerwoods Deathtrap, and Torn. Photos courtesy of A24, Conrad Anker, and the filmmakers.In the time since Wrubel came onboard, Aspen Film has rounded out its seasonal programming with Summer of Cinema, when it partners with other organizations in the valley to host a variety of screenings in the summer months, and Indie Showcase, a monthly independent film series. Wrubel has also steadily worked to secure a dedicated venue for the organization’s year-round film screenings and educational programs. That effort culminated in 2022 with the purchase of the Isis Theatre in downtown Aspen, where Aspen Film has hosted festivals and other events since the organization’s infancy.
To this day, independent cinema is central to Aspen Film. In selecting the more than 200 films it screens throughout the year—a task that takes Wrubel to festivals around the world, from Sundance and Tribeca to Toronto and Cannes—Aspen Film isn’t looking for big blockbuster hits. Even the larger titles Wrubel brings in tend to have an independent spirit, and they’re often made or produced by up-and-comers in the industry. Shortsfest has long showcased the work of filmmakers who went on to high-profile careers in Hollywood, including Destin Daniel Cretton (of recent Marvel Studios fame) and Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air ).
Continuing this tradition of spotlighting filmmakers early in their careers, Aspen Film is doubling down on its efforts to cultivate young talent throughout the Roaring Fork Valley. “It’s a beautiful place we live, and a lot of the energy is focused on getting kids skiing and outdoors,” says Erin McVoy, operations and production
Marvel director Destin Daniel Cretton’s lauded feature Short Term 12, above, was adapted from a short film of the same name that he presented at Shortsfest in 2009.
Filmmaker Jason Reitman, pictured at right on the set of the film Young Adult, was a repeat Shortsfest honoree before rising to fame with his breakout film, Thank You for Smoking.
Photos courtesy of Paramount and Animal Kingdom.
director at Aspen Film. “But there are a lot of kids who that stuff doesn’t resonate with, and being able to connect them to the arts and tell their stories in different ways is really exciting.”
Tasked with reviving Aspen Film’s youth programs after they were put on hold during the pandemic, McVoy started by launching Film Camp: a week-long program in which local teens learn about filmmaking by producing Aspencentric short films. McVoy worked with the Colorado Office of Film, Television and Media and Colorado Film School in Denver to plan the program and hire experienced teachers to lead it, debuting the camp in the summer of 2021. The program grew to two weeks in 2022, and next year, Aspen Film hopes to further expand the program downvalley.
The organization further leveraged its industry resources in fall 2022 by piloting a six-week film seminar in partnership with Bridges High School in Carbondale and an instructional series in which students conduct on-camera interviews with visiting filmmakers during Aspen Film’s annual festivals. Both programs were conceived with the goal of developing them into scalable, year-round offerings.
And McVoy and the rest of the team at Aspen Film are just getting started. They plan to continue deepening relationships with schools in the area to grow programming for local youth. “Hopefully we’re going to generate a future Academy Award winner out of this valley,” McVoy says.
“One of the most important things in the entertainment business is young storytellers,” says Anthony Peck, chairman of the board of directors of Aspen Film, in a short film produced by Film Camp students Quintin Calcott and Tito Schafer in summer 2022.
From the photographer’s À La Montagne series, an aerial image entitled Three Skiers, Aspen.
with Gray Malin
The fine art photographer talks travel, his love for Aspen, and photoworthy moments.
Growing up in Dallas, I didn’t come from a family that did big, elaborate trips. It was through my grandparents that I became truly intrigued by the idea of seeing the world. They visited over 100 countries together and kept these beautiful photo albums of all their trips during the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.
All of those albums are still at our family’s summer home on Lake Michigan. We don’t have a television there—it’s a place where you play games, go to the beach, have dinner together—so I spent a lot of time as a kid looking through these amazing photographs of their travels. My aesthetic as a photographer is inspired in part by those vintage snapshots of their life.
My first real taste of travel was studying abroad in college, when I lived two hours outside of Amsterdam in a 14th-century castle with two moats. That experience helped shape the creative journey that followed, one that fatefully led me on a helicopter ride above Miami
in 2011. I discovered the beauty of the beach from above and spent the next year traveling all over the world to continue adding to the exciting portfolio of aerial beach photography that began on that helicopter.
One of my high school friends has had a family house in Aspen for years, so at one point I called and told her about this idea I had to photograph skiers dotting the snow the same way I was photographing sunbathers, umbrellas, and chaise lounges dotting the sand. She invited me to stay with her, and we flew out on a helicopter during that very busy time between Christmas and New Year’s. After all my work in beach destinations, I didn’t quite realize how cold it would be on that door-less flight! That’s when I shot my first-ever aerial photograph over the snowy tundra below.
This was before people were using drones, so back then, photos like that were unprecedented. I still shoot
Following the success of Snow Beach in 2022, Gray Malin is teaming up with ASPENX to orchestrate another mountainside activation in 2023, ASPENX Beach Club.
on next spread, The Slope, Aspen © Gray Malin.
that way—from a helicopter, not with a drone. I’m obsessed with the artistry and adventure of creating compositions up in the air. No one can really tell when the photos were taken because you’re viewing the scene from so far above. They’re timeless.
I didn’t anticipate how much people were going to love those images, or that I would end up falling in love with Aspen. One day I hope to own a home here. That’s how much I love this place. The one trip I took in all of 2020 was a weekend in Aspen during peak fall foliage. I needed an escape from Los Angeles, where I live with my husband and twins. We’re hoping to bring them out for their first ski lessons this winter.
At the time of that trip, I had just designed Cabana One for The Beverly Hills Hotel—a whimsical poolside cabana designed to make guests feel like they’re stepping inside a Gray Malin photograph. I wondered if we could bring an experiential concept like Cabana One to guests of The Little Nell.
I’d worked with The Little Nell a few years prior, after Aspen Skiing Company and I connected over doing a throwback winter photoshoot to celebrate The Little Nell’s 30th anniversary. I got to work with an incredible archive of
vintage ski clothes from a collector who lives downvalley in Carbondale. The photos still hang in the Sundeck.
I started studying my aerial photographs of beach and ski clubs and thought, what if we brought the beach to the top of the ski mountain, giving people an out-of-this-world setting to take their own photographs, make their own Gray Malin moment? In collaboration with ASPENX, we created a signature experience called Snow Beach, building a beach club in the snow at 11,000 feet and supplying it with amazing extras like Champagne and caviar from The Little Nell. This year is going to be even bigger and better, with new additions and a new name, ASPENX Beach Club.
What makes hotels iconic is their location. The Little Nell is one of a kind in Aspen, with a special sense of place that comes from being right at the base of the mountain under the gondola. It was a dream come true to see this wild scheme come to life at the top of Ajax in 2022. I designed the visual identity of the experience, from the furniture to the layout to the color palette. To see Snow Beach go from paper and pencil to reality, and to witness guests enjoying it so much, was unbelievable. I’ll forever be proud of it.
At right and above, Aspen Lone Skier and High Alpine Skiers, Aspen © Gray Malin.
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Hear from the sociable ski bum on the heels of her nearly two-decade reign as “Queen of Strudel” at Bonnie’s Restaurant.
“Desserts first, life’s uncertain!” Gretl Uhl put that sign up in the ’60s, back when Bonnie’s was Gretl’s on Aspen Mountain. They built a wooden shack halfway down the hill, and Gretl made strudel and goulash. She used these heavy cast-iron pans to make the strudel, and they were a bear to wash—can you imagine?
Bonnie Rayburn and Peter Greene got the restaurant in 1980, along with Gretl’s recipe for strudel. You think Aspen is high altitude? Go bake at Bonnie’s—10,400 feet above sea level— and see what happens to your cakes!
My first year working at Bonnie’s was 2002, when owner Brigitte Birrfelder was pregnant with her daughter, Annika. What’s not to love about getting first tracks and skiing to work? If it’s a powder day you go in a little later. Then you’re surrounded all day by people who love to do what you love to do: ski.
Sometimes we’d have a line out the door. How I put in cheeseburger orders became a big deal. Everyone in the restaurant would hear, “One cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseburgahhhhhh!” on the loudspeakers. The grill guys from El Salvador loved when I worked because they could understand my orders. Their shrimp tacos and pico de gallo are to die for!
All of the food at Bonnie’s is made from scratch: Philly cheesesteaks, Reuben sandwiches, chicken chowder, salad with salmon or ahi on top, soups, homemade bread. We had women from the original Wienerstube restaurant as cooks. Brigitte grew up at the Sundeck; she knows how to run a business, and she doesn’t skimp on ingredients. I used 34 percent milkfat in my whipped cream because we found that works best for whipping. Our pie cherries are from Colorado orchards. And you don’t get better blueberries than Wyman’s of Maine. I’m from Maine, so I know!
“Idid the ski-bum lifestyle without money in the ’70s,” says longtime Aspen resident Muffin Dole. “Now you need millions.”
Colorado Rome apples are the secret to the restaurant’s famous strudel—that, and love. We use an old-fashioned handcrank machine that peels and cores the apples, one at a time.
Brigitte created the oatmeal pancake. Oh god, that pancake can’t be beat, and you can’t duplicate it at home. I’ve tried! I had a plain pancake every single day when I worked. People can buy a pint of real maple syrup and leave it at the restaurant, like mugs hanging on the hooks at an Irish pub. Jack Nicholson, Antonio Banderas, and Melanie Griffith, they would all come through Bonnie’s.
Before Colorado, I was a schoolteacher in Maine, living on Lake Sebago halfway between my parents’ home in Portland and our ski chalet in Bridgton, where I learned to ski at age 3 at Pleasant Mountain. I came to Aspen on vacation in 1975. I wanted more freedom in my life. I looked around Aspen—the beauty of the area, the small-town feeling—and knew this was my place. Everybody had a lust for skiing. God skied! It was the vibe that drew me in.
I worked in a restaurant on Nantucket that summer, then packed my yellow Volkswagen Bug and moved here for the winter of ’76. Independence Pass was paved by that point, but it was gnarly. I worried that the car wouldn’t make it!
I returned East to Nantucket in the summer, then back to Aspen in winter. I continued that lifestyle until 1986. I call that my “decade of decadence.” If you were ever hungover in Aspen, the first run of the day was always Walsh’s. That trail kicks your ass.
If you’re going to be part of a resort community, I say live in the middle of it, with mountain access. Back in my day, it was affordable. It wasn’t groomed back then—not like it is today—but it was light, soft.
In 1988, I bought my home downtown through the Housing Authority lottery. Out of ten people, they drew my name: Margaret Dole. I stood there for a second before I realized, Oh, that’s me! I was always called Muffin. Before my mother died in 1994, she said, “You will always be a Muffin to me.”
When I was little, I used to have a recurring dream about living in the mountains. Years later, after I moved to Aspen, that dream popped to the forefront of my mind. I hadn’t thought about it since I was a kid. Your subconscious will work toward what you want if it ’s deep in your soul.
The best decision I ever made in my life was moving here. I think we all feel that way. Aspen is cosmopolitan,
with an amazing community. Walking downtown, you hear languages from around the world and heart-stopping music by young musicians. Theatre Aspen has Broadway actors. Aspen is the ski capital of the West.
After our shift at Bonnie’s, we’d change back into our ski clothes and boots, which we’d shove under the pizza oven in the kitchen to keep warm. Then we’d run outside, grab our skis, and take a final run—how can you do anything but smile?
Bonnie’s is still a tight-knit family. Everyone works hard and is connected for life. My leaving after last season was the end of an era.
Now I’m on oxygen 24/7, and the machine doesn’t like ice-cold temperatures. If it clonks , how much time do I have before ski patrol can get to me with more oxygen? Still, since I’m not working at Bonnie’s this winter, I’m going to play. That’s what you do when you’re 74: You go for more! I will visit, though. I love the pizza. And I must have a slice of blueberry pie every once in a while, to remind me of home.
Muffin Dole’s go-to uniform during her days behind the dessert counter at Bonnie’s on Aspen Mountain included a pair of tie-dye Levi’s 501s from Susie’s Consignments.
San Diego’s crankiest drag queen spills party stories from Aspen Gay Ski Week.
My parents weren’t the least bit surprised when I decided to become a drag queen. They couldn’t keep me out of my grandma’s closet growing up—there are pictures of me in knee-highs and pantyhose and ladies’ hats because I’ve been cross-dressing since I was 4.
I started dabbling in drag during college. The closest drag club from me at school in northwestern Arkansas was in Tennessee, so anytime I would go visit home in northeastern Arkansas, I would take the family minivan and drive an hour and a half to Memphis for amateur night. Eventually I decided I wanted to make a career of it, and I’ve been a full-time drag performer for a few years now.
”The
longer I perform as Mariam, the more we collide. Or, rather, the more I realize we’re not that different.” —Remington Scott, on life as the drag queen Mariam T
Mariam T is kind of like Benjamin Button. Originally she was this older Yiddish woman who spent way too much time at the casino, but as I’ve explored her personality and grown with her, she’s gotten younger. Now Mariam is an early-40s sex bomb—but matronly, like a well-kept stepmother. She’s married to somebody with lots of money who she doesn’t have to talk to very often.
Mariam’s favorite colors are floral and leopard, so there’s always an element of tackiness, but she’s so glamorous that you don’t care that the dress she’s wearing is made of the same fabric that’s on the chair in the hospital waiting room—yes, it’s ugly, but fabulous somehow.
I’m known as San Diego’s crankiest drag queen. I like to say that I’m the Gilbert Gottfried of drag; there’s a lot of screaming and yelling involved. Mariam is very curmudgeonly, but she’s always a good time. You’re going to get made fun of, and you’re going to laugh a lot.
I’m a trained standup comic—that’s what I did before drag—and I don’t think people are expecting all the jokes and sharp wit. My bingo shows are like a musical performance, bingo game, and standup comedy night all in one.
The former marketing director of the restaurant group I do drag for in San Diego now does marketing for Aspen Gay Ski Week, so when the organization was looking for someone to host drag bingo, they asked if he knew anyone and he was like, “Oh, I know the bingo queen.”
They flew me out to Aspen for the first time in 2020. I had a long layover and was drinking bubbles the whole way there, so I fell asleep on the flight. After we landed, the flight attendants had to wake me and tell me to get off the plane. I got out and was like, Where am I? I’d never been there before, and it felt like I’d been dropped in the middle of a Hallmark Christmas card.
The more time I spend in Aspen, the more I realize it’s not all high-end luxury boutiques. There are quirky little shops and much more character than I was expecting. And I assumed it was going to be all prim and proper, but people in Aspen are really fun to party with. If anybody ever wants to find me in Aspen when I’m not doing a show, I’m usually at Clark’s Oyster Bar in my caftan drinking with all the locals.
I get treated like a baby celebrity when I’m in Aspen because I stick out like a sore thumb. I’m more accessible than a real celebrity, though, because I’ll come out and talk to you after the show. We can hang out, do tequila shots, take pictures, and send videos to your grandpa or your kids.
There aren’t a lot of drag queens in Aspen, so I think people aren’t used to that kind of entertainment. They’re happy to have it at all, which makes my job really easy. Everyone is so intrigued by the whole concept of drag, it’s like moths to a flame. Every Gay Ski Week event we’ve done has sold out.
My favorite moment of Gay Ski Week last year was hosting the Downhill
Costume Contest. That’s when we bring the giant LGBTQ flag down the mountain, and the energy is through the roof. As the host, I basically get pelted with snow for three hours. I gave up trying to hang on to my Champagne flute, so I was drinking bubbles right from the bottle like a real class act, berating the crowd and getting people to take their clothes off in the snow for $500 donations
After that, we raged. I passed out at 6 p.m. and accidentally slept through the pool party. I woke up at two o’clock in the morning in a full face of makeup. But we raised a ton of money and had a lot of fun.
It’s very energy consuming, but I get a lot out of being Mariam. I’m a fairly high-strung person in my everyday life, but I’ve found that I’m able to exhaust a lot of that on stage. I think I’m more comfortable with who I am the rest of the time because of her.
Mariam has also made me realize the importance of humor and making people laugh. People are always coming up to me after shows to tell me things like, “This is the first time I’ve laughed since my dad died.”
There’s a part of every show when I bring audience members up on stage, anybody who’s celebrating anything: birthdays, divorces, beating cancer, coming out, pregnancies, bachelorette parties. Once, we celebrated the reunion of two sisters in their 70s who hadn’t spoken in 40 years.
Moments like that never get old. They’re one of my favorite things about what I do, second only to hearing people constantly tell me I’m gorgeous. That never gets old, either.
A bluebird day at Aspen Highlands.
Element 47’s famous lemon soufflé pancakes.
General Manager Henning Rahm shares a few of his go-to’s in Aspen.
Rahm Reveals
Go-to Aspen Snowmass ski area
Aspen Highlands is a locals’ favorite, with uncrowded slopes for every level of skier. It has the best mix of terrain, not to mention killer views of the Maroon Bells.
Best-loved breakfast
My first choice for breakfast is Element 47, which is beyond impressive and what I consider the best buffet in Aspen. I also enjoy a leisurely sit-down experience at Spring Café for its healthy and delectable vegan and vegetarian dishes.
Midday meal
On the slopes, my favorite lunch spot would absolutely have to be Sam’s on Snowmass Mountain for its breathtaking views, homemade bread, thinly sliced prosciutto, bowls of pasta, and great Negroni cocktail. In town, I’d say Casa Tua— you can’t get any closer to Italy in Aspen.
Dinner destination
Just around the corner from The Nell is Betula, a cozy, warm, and inviting restaurant that serves classic cocktails and French Pan-American cuisine with a modern twist. There’s always an element of surprise for the palate.
My room at The Nell
The Benedict Suite, room 46, is my first-choice accommodation at The Nell. Located on the third floor with a mountain view, it’s airy, spacious, and named for the late, great Fritz Benedict, who studied architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright, served in the 10th Mountain Division of skiing soldiers who successfully defended the U.S. in World War II in Italy, and returned to Aspen afterward to establish its distinctive style of modern architecture. This 1,250-squarefoot one-bedroom space is a nod to that aesthetic, featuring open space that embraces the environment outside and a highly personalized interior with custom artwork by Walter Niedermayr and John Riepenhoff, a Chamont Chandelier by Jonathan Browning, an Ajiro Diamond wall covering by Maya Romanoff, and Mark Albrecht counter stools. This is pure comfort by design.
How I unwind
With my family and a good ol’ whiskey.
Filming for SOMM TV took place at The Wine Bar and the cellar at The Little Nell during the 2022 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen.
From the team behind the awardwinning Somm films comes SOMM TV, a streaming service dedicated to wine, food, travel, and hospitality.
Production continues on SOMM TV, a streaming network co-founded in 2019 by husband-and-wife filmmaking duo Jason and Christina Wise and cinematographer Jackson Myers, who first cast a spotlight on the sommelier profession with their acclaimed film Somm (2012). “It was a movie that hit at the right place at the right time,” Jason says, reflecting on the 10-year anniversary of Somm’ s premiere. “It hit a zeitgeist. Previously, sommeliers were not well known. This changed that. It was kind of like a sports film. It won awards. It created our careers.”
When the production team set out to create Somm , they immediately looked to The Little Nell for both inspiration and the film’s protagonists. “When it comes to wine education, I have always considered The Nell a nucleus,” Jason says. “I think of The Nell for wine the same way I think of New York City or Milan for fashion, or L.A. for entertainment.”
The first person confirmed for the film was Master Sommelier Brian McClintic, who worked at The Nell in the ’90s. He brought in fellow Nell alums Dustin Wilson, MS, and Sabato Sagaria, MS, who arrived in the 2000s. Their onscreen chemistry was infectious, and the first film was such a success that a sequel, and then a third film, soon followed. Master Sommelier Jay Fletcher, known as “Papa Fletch,” has played an instrumental part in educating many of The Nell’s sommeliers and, justly so, appears in all the films. Master Sommeliers Bobby Stuckey and Carlton McCoy, former wine directors at The Nell, also appear in the series.
SOMM TV is the first SVOD (subscription video on demand) streaming platform and full podcast network in the wine, food, and travel space, offering exclusive new shows, films, and educational content created from the ground up. Production has taken place in notable locations around the world, from Mount Vesuvius to the Vatican, and sent the team to abandoned wineries, underwater with great white sharks, and to venues throughout The Nell during the 2022 Food & Wine Classic.
What’s next for the team behind the small screen? Cup of Salvation , the fourth installment in the Somm series, will be the next feature documentary from SOMM TV, followed by Ghosts of Spring Mountain , a feature documentary that tells the story of reportedly haunted wineries in Napa Valley. Find SOMM TV online and stand by for Somm 4: Cup of Salvation , slated for release in 2023.
The Little Nell’s ski concierge services are among the hotel’s most popular amenities.
Guests of The Nell turn to lead ski concierge Ray McNutt for memorable moments on the mountain.
Why skiers choose Aspen
Aspen is great for ski lovers due to the wide variety of terrain, minimal lift lines, consistent sun, and, of course, our pristine powder. People especially love staying at The Little Nell for their ski vacation because it’s the only ski-in/ski-out hotel at the base of Aspen Mountain.
Advice for first-timers
A good tip for a first-time skier on Aspen Mountain is to sign up for First Tracks. This exclusive experience allows guests to go up the gondola before it opens to the public and take their first run with an experienced ski instructor. You’ll take a top-to-bottom run on freshly groomed corduroy or, if you’re lucky, you’ll take your first run in deep powder. After your first run, take the gondola back to the top of the mountain and head to Bonnie’s for a wonderful breakfast. Make sure to try the famous oatmeal pancakes.
Most unique request
It was the day before Christmas, and a long-time guest was looking for a specific pair of Völkl skis for their youngest daughter. We couldn’t find the skis anywhere in town but found a shop in Denver that had them in stock. Since it was too late to have them delivered, I arranged for our transportation team to pick up the skis in Denver and deliver them to Aspen. We mounted the skis, had them wrapped, and gave them to her parents on Christmas morning. The girl came down later in the morning smiling ear to ear, telling me that Santa brought her a new pair of skis. If she only knew.
Insider’s tip for skiing Aspen Mountain
I would recommend skiing on the west side of the mountain on the 1A lift for a different experience. The skiing offers a great variety of terrain, and there are considerably fewer skiers there than on the rest of the mountain.
Favorite Little Nell adventure
While I would love to ski powder on our weekly Snowcat Powder Tour, I think the First Tracks program is very special. You’re able to experience Aspen Mountain in a different way. The mountain is quiet, the light is different, and you’re skiing on an untouched, perfectly groomed ski run.
Seize the Slopes
Image by Jessica Grenier
Fondest
ski memory
While I’ve had some amazing trips cat skiing in Canada, my fondest ski memory is skiing in northern India. Helicopter skiing in the Himalayas and experiencing the culture of India is something I will never forget.
Go-to mountain in Aspen Snowmass
Aspen Highlands. The Highland Bowl experience is truly unmatched, but the entire mountain offers incredible skiing. The lower section of Highlands has some very challenging and steep terrain, which people often overlook because they’re looking to ski the top of the mountain. And, of course, you have Cloud Nine, which is a must-do experience on every trip to Aspen.
Powder day or groomers?
While Aspen Skiing Company has a world-class grooming operation, and I truly enjoy skiing groomed runs, I will take a powder day any chance I can get. There is just no substitute for skiing the lightest snow in the world.
Ladurée’s luxury confections can be found at the ASPENX store in Lower Gondola Plaza, open daily from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
