Telluride Ski Tree: Lighting Ceremony Friday, 12/6

01 Dec Telluride Ski Tree: Lighting Ceremony Friday, 12/6

The Telluride Ski Tree, by Anton Viditz Ward & Friends

People with quirky personalities are drawn to resort towns like ours. And that’s a good thing. Counterculture types tend to think up frankly awesome, if completely eccentric, sometimes history-making things. (Remember L.L. Nunn?)

Kennebunkport, Maine has a Lobster Trap Tree. Why not a one-of-a kind Ski Tree, an embodiment of mountain culture, as the centerpiece of a Holiday Prelude celebration in Telluride?

Friday, December 6, 2013, 6-8 p.m. marks the town gathering for the historic lighting of The Telluride Ski Tree, an idea generated by entrepreneur Ted Wilson and his big think committee – Daiva Chesonis (Between the Covers), Adam Smith (Telluride Watch), Emily Coleman (Telluride Tourism Board), John Wontrobski (Telluride Parks & Rec), Kate Jones(Telluride Arts), and Paula Ciberay (Wilkinson Public Library) – in keeping with Telluride’s long history of illumination.

(See above reference to L.L. Nunn, who, in 1891, with Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse, built the world’s first commercial grade AC power plant at Ames, near Ophir, CO.)

The Ski Tree ceremony is the signature event of two weeks of festive seasonal activities, uptown in Mountain Village and downtown in the Town of Telluride, December 4 – December 15, designed to appeal to winter holiday season guests.

Ullr, the randy old Norse god of winter or snow or skiing (plus archery and hunting) presides over the festivities, where we are all meant to give thanks for fat winters, past, present and future. The fun includes a ski burn – though burning real skis would generate toxic fumes. Symbolic wooden ski shapes will be placed on the flames in the campfire ring by individuals representing a cross-section of the region’s eclectic population and interests, what makes Telluride great: musicians, the arts, schools, restaurants, athletes, non-profits, EMS, 2 mayors, ski patrol, Telski CEO, Telluride Ski and Snowbard Club, merchants and, of course, Himay Palmer. Telluride Choral Society carolers will sing. DJ Soul Atomic will spin. Free hot chocolate will be poured.

The event also serves as Telski’s employee appreciation party.

The 12-foot Telluride Ski Tree, crowned by a star fashioned out of ski poles, is the work of Anton Viditz Ward, master welder, architect and renowned Burning Man artist. Over 300 skis were gathered for the project, then cut and attached to the metal frame work, a thankless job made easier thanks to the efforts of volunteers like Timmy “Stuntman” Territo and Wontrobski.

“Every morning I would find a new pile of skis under the deck of Between the Covers,” said Chesonis. “Current models all the way back to the Sixties. In future, any extra skis will be used to ‘add a ring’ at the base to ‘grow’ the tree until it reaches the maximum height for safety (and installation). And Ullr willing, the hope of our committee is that the Ski Tree will have a big future. We all plan to be attending lighting ceremonies with our grandkids.”

Suit up the kiddos and head to Elks Park for the party. And call any friends who live in driving distance from town. The lodging community has some screaming deals for the weekend.