Get TIO in your Inbox!

October 2010

-1
While staying in Athens, Telluride Inside... and Out visited Corinth. The ancient city was upon a time a nearly impregnable fortress with a reputation for lewd and licentious behavior in the name of the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite. St. Paul must have found the profligates irresistible: he founded a church in Corinth during an 18-month stay.
"Golden" Mycenae was once the most powerful city state in Greece, with the whole of the Peloponnese under its dominion. 
The entrance to Mycenae's acropolis is through the Lion Gate, the oldest example of monumental sculpture in Europe. Inside the walls, excavations have uncovered a palace complex, Grave Circle A with its six royal tombs, courtier's houses, craft areas, sanctuaries, and other important buildings. Off the acropolis lie more finds: Grave Circle B with its 14 royal tombs and the tombs of 12 private homes. On a nearby hill is one of the most memorable edifices of Mycenaen architecture, the Treasure of Atreus, also known as the Beehive Tomb of Agamemnon.
20 October, 2010 /

Nat at salon
(Left to right, Salon du Musee Founder/Curator Natalie Rekstad-Lynn and Salon Event Director, Carmel Koeltzow. Photo courtesy of Black Tie Colorado.)

I met Natalie Rekstad-Lynn in 2005, she was sitting along the wall of my acting class with the rest of the students at the Denver Center Theatre Academy. She’d only made it to a few classes but did not go unnoticed. Her eyes were clear blue and clearly focused, her ballerina's body and the intensity she brought to her work lifted her above the rest. One night she stayed behind a bit to apologize for her absence, let me know she enjoyed the class and something about driving from Boulder and having a new baby. We chatted for a while in "mom speak" about babes and shifts they made to careers and hips. She offhandedly mentioned an ' annual fundraiser' she did to benefit the arts. I, in my rush and snobbery, thought she was speaking of a hobby; a little like Mommy and Me with Degas. Ha! I had no idea who I was talking to for Natalie Rekstad- Lynn plays on a role far bigger than those I was coaching.

20 October, 2010 /

  IMG_0264 IMG_0306

 

Fall has not yet subsided into winter, and if you're still out hiking in Telluride, there's one last trail you should check out: Hawn Mountain. Anyone who has ever tried to walk over a talus slope or a scree field, putting their ankles in jeopardy on the shifting rocks and sometimes ending up on their backsides, will appreciate the sheer genius of the Hawn Mountain trail. Gray Head developer and longime local Steve Catsman designed this and all 16 miles of the Gray Head trails, as well as the Keystone Gorge Trail on the other side of the Telluride Valley. The trail’s switchbacks pass through ferrous rock, sharp pieces of grey and rust-colored granite. But instead of picking your way through the stones, take the stairs—an intricate staircase has been fashioned from the rocks, giving hikers a firm footing over which to pass through the scree field.

The stairway is truly amazing, maybe even as spectacular as the vantage points you reach on the hike. Doug Wolfe and his crew helped construct the rock route, and Wolfe said it took him a good two weeks to stand up without pain after it was completed.

19 October, 2010 /

Noma1 Noma2 Noma3



  

By Lisa Barlow

 

Editor's note: This is the first weekly column from new TIO contributor Lisa Barlow. Barlow is a writer and photographer who divides her time between New York, Telluride and San Pancho, Mexico. An enthusiastic omnivore, she specializes in stories about food. The photos above, from left to right: glazed beetroot and apples; poached eggs and radishes; pork neck and bulrushes, violets and malt.  LB2

It’s easy now to imagine how Babette might have coped at the end of Babette’s Feast when she had revealed herself to be a kick ass French chef, but had run out of money and was destined to remain as a cook and housekeeper for two ascetic spinsters in the remote and unforgiving landscape of Jutland in Denmark. Forget the foie gras and the Veuve Cliquot, all she had to do to look for extraordinary ingredients and inspiration was to open her front door.

19 October, 2010 /

Minds of Mountainfilm - Tom Shadyac from Mountainfilm in Telluride on Vimeo.

 

 

This weekend, people enjoying the 2010 Mountainfilm program will be surrounded by skyscrapers instead of mountains—the film festival is screening some of its finest flicks in New York City at the Lincoln Center this Oct. 22-24, including Tom Shadyac's I Am and Reel Thing Productions' Bag It. Mountainfilm is also sharing its message about the extinction crisis (the festival's 2010 theme) by hosting a discussion with a panel of experts at the event.

Over the years, Mountainfilm in Telluride has evolved from its roots as a cinematic collection of outdoor adventures into something even more significant. Today, Mountainfilm offers a broader perspective on the world, a group of films, books and conversations by people who share a love for the natural world and a passion for protecting our place in it. The documentaries presented still portray the pioneering adventurers of the outdoors, but now films like I Am and Bag It also make another type of connection with audiences. They ask tough questions about how over-consumption and greed are affecting our world.

18 October, 2010 /

DSC02439 Our experience is that  upon venturing outside the bubble we call Telluride, it takes awhile to find our sea legs. Or in this case, our way around the kitchen.

Greece has it when it comes to food: the Pelopponese is a kind of Eden, growing all kinds of fruits and vegetables, producing amazing wines , cheeses, meats and olive oils too. Crete, where we are headed today,  is another food mecca. So it is no big surprise that Athens is a food town, with a wide range of choices of eateries from down and dirty tavernas to Michelin-starred restaurants. (There's one right next store to our hotel, Eridanus, but we failed to score a reservation.)

18 October, 2010 /

Editor's note: For eight years, Telluride local/mountaineer Ben Clark and a few friends/professional colleagues have made Spring treks to the majestic Himalayas. Follow his adventures on Telluride Inside... and Out, including links to his regular podcasts. If you have missed any of Ben's posts, just type "Ben Clark" into Lijit Search to find them all.

When I broke my ankle on May 1 last spring, I was at 17,600’ on 23,390' Baruntse, also known as my own personal Moby Dick for reasons you can research at www.skithehimalayas.com. Unlike Ahab, I was rescued by a vessel rather than doomed to one. Lifted into the skies, wrapped in bandages, worked over through weeks of PT and now here I am again today, returning to wrestle with ambition and not the ankle. Hopefully stronger, admittedly risk averse and yet still with an appetite for the unknown. The whale is gone though, off my range for a spell. 

17 October, 2010 /

Dateline: Athens, 10/16/2010

IMGP1701 You know you are not in Kansas – Telluride either – when the view outside your window is, yes, a mountain, but not a very big one, and on top of that mountain –  or "Sacred Rock," the name locals gave it – is a cluster of ancient buildings, marble masterpieces dating back to the late fifth century B.C., the Golden Age of Athens.

The temples on the Acropolis, including the Parthenon, are among the most important monuments in the Western world. Yesterday, day #2 in Greece, we made the required pilgrimage. I say "required," not "desired," because the place is on everyone else's bucket list too, and so even now, the tail end of tourist season, there is barely room to turn around. But I am getting ahead of myself.

17 October, 2010 /

    Labrador retrievers are easy to train, says Ted Hoff, owner of Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel, near Crawford, Colorado. They pick up skills so easily, he says, because they are eager to please. They are also...

16 October, 2010 /

October 14 to 21, 2010
Visible Planets: Morning: none  Evening: Venus, Mars and Jupiter

"Live each and every moment of your precious life.".......Lise Christine Gausman

Red vines It’s mid-October and the days are blessings of brilliant blue, crimson red and golden yellow. Temperatures range from highs in the mid-60s to mid-70s, with lows in the mid-30s to 40s. So far, there has been no hard frost. My tomato plants are still producing fruit, our pink roses are in bloom and the zinnias are bursting with color. Magnificent Indian Summer!

Last week I celebrated the day of my birth, the day I chose to incarnate, the day that somehow, someway, the miracle of procreation created me. And here it is, LIFE. Life on Planet Earth, with all its magic and mystery, pain and suffering, ecstasy and joy. I know today that all is as it should be, all is as it is, and that everything happens for a reason – even if I can’t see or understand why.

15 October, 2010 /