A Telluride Thanksgiving

28 Nov A Telluride Thanksgiving

Trout Lake Trailhead

I woke up Thanksgiving morning to a beautiful sunrise over the San Miguel River Valley. Since I had a warm-up skiing on the mountain yesterday for Donation Day, Susan suggested going cross country skiing with Gina the Dog instead of downhill on Lift 4. That sounded good: how about driving up to Trout Lake to ski the railroad grade up to Lizard Head Pass? She agreed, we loaded our gear, and by 0930 were heading up the trail.

On the Trail

The promise of the sunrise was borne out by the Colorado blue sky day at our trailhead. I have to say, as much as I love downhill skiing there is something about an outing with my wife and our dog on a sunny winter morning that is just pretty hard to beat. We both felt strong heading up the gentle grade, and Gina the Dog was in heaven: running ahead then coming back to check on us. We met a number of friends who had made the same choice, not enough to destroy the feeling of beautiful solitude, but enough to make it feel we were part of a like-minded community.

As this was our first skinny-ski outing of the season, we elected not to go all the way up to the Pass, but we weren’t far from the top when we decided to turn around. The beauty of the Trout Lake grade in my mind is the trail through the trees on the way up, where the only other view is the ribbon of blue overhead, which becomes a gorgeous mountain landscape once we turn around and head back to the valley. I love looking at the snow-covered peaks which are the scene of summer climbs, each familiar yet always changing with the seasons and even from one day to the next.

I’m not going to embarrass myself and disclose why I decided to return nearly to our turn-around point once we returned to the parking lot, but the additional skiing felt good. And for a bonus, we ran into friends at the trailhead we would have missed, or at best passed on the road along Trout Lake if I hadn’t taken the time to go back up the trail. Sometimes you have to take a Confucian view of things: what seemed like a problem may turn out in the end to be a benefit. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.