Telluride: Homesickness for a Place You’ve Never Seen

08 Oct Telluride: Homesickness for a Place You’ve Never Seen

Wilson Range behind Mountain Village

“Telluride? Big mistake- you”ll never leave!”

I had stayed for a few days with my friend Rico in Aspen, was headed for some solo camping in the Canyonlands, and got a noon-ish start because of a mid-fall snowstorm and a motorcycle with summer tires. Rico asked where I was going to spend the night, correctly observing I wasn’t going to get to a camping spot before dead-dark. “Telluride would make a good overnight stop,” says I. Then came his prophetic advice.

As I topped Keystone Hill,  the mid-October setting sun was just painting the tops of the peaks at the upper end of the San Miguel valley and I found myself thinking I had come home, even though I’d never been to Telluride and knew no one in the town. I noted the Sheridan Bar, parked outside, and ordered up the first of several beers. Later I asked the bartender about rooms in the hotel. As I recall, the room cost me $16 and included a bath. It wasn’t luxurious, but it was comfortable.

The next morning I waited for the thermometer to get above freezing before going out for my morning run. By the time I ran out to the mill and back I’d made up my mind: I went to find a realtor. Snap decisions don’t always work out. This one did.

Result: a beautiful lot on Wilson Mesa where I intended to build my house, and a pleasant little one bedroom condo two miles out of town to serve as home until I got around to building. Life interfered. My time was spent skiing in the winter, hiking, climbing, and riding my new mountain bike in the summer so I never got around to construction on the house on the mesa. Anyway my condo served my purposes.

One moment in those early days in Telluride stands out nearly 30 years later. As I topped the ridge on Chair 9 on that blue-sky December day, my mouth fell open as I viewed the upper Bear Creek Valley for the first time. I said to myself, “Clint, if you ever become so blasé that you can take this for granted, you are already dead.” I still get that feeling every time I am treated to that vista.

Top of Telluride’s Lift 15, Palmyra Peak in the Background

I was an intermediate skier when I first got to Telluride. Even double-blue Lookout was a handful for me at the beginning. I soon got very comfortable on the easier runs on the Mountain Village side, and new friends pushed me to tackle the more difficult terrain on the town side of the mountain. Before the winch-cats allowed the grooming of the steeps, my descents weren’t always pretty, but I learned to enjoy the more aggressive runs, including the hike-to skiing on Gold Hill.

My wife Susan and I met in New York a few years after my move to Telluride. She agreed to move to Telluride with me and that was it. We were married four months later. For two years I spent too little time in Telluride, but she was as good as her word, and in the Spring of 1991, we moved full-time into our new condo next to the Doral (now the Peaks) Hotel in Mountain Village. Susan, a child of New York City, was not a skier, but she soon came to love this beautiful town in the mountains.

Mountain Village from the Gondola

Over the years, the ski mountain and I grew up together. The first change was the addition of Lift 10 in the 1986-87 season. The Gondola came along in 1996, which made the Mountain Village very accessible from the Town of Telluride. The addition of Lifts 11-14 made it possible for nearly any level of skier to do circuits of the whole mountain, to spend hours on the easy runs on Lift 10, then elevate the game to take on one of the prettiest intermediate runs I have ever skied: See Forever, with it’s endless views of the Wilsons, San Miguel Canyon, the La Sals over on the Utah line, Bear Creek Canyon, Telluride and the San Sofia Ridge. We’re traveling as I write this. I hear there’s been some snow at home, and in my mind’s eye, I see all of See Forever on a blue-sky winter day, feel the whisper of new snow beneath my skis, and the wind in my face. Ah, that’s heaven!

Good snow on Genevieve

Now in my ’70s, I’m a long way from the lower intermediate skier who arrived in Telluride in the Fall of 1985. I love the expert hike-to runs above Lift 12 that are a good trade-off for the old Gold Hill runs that are now lift-served. And Revelation Bowl (Lift 15) is a favorite because of the variety of sun angles provided by it’s nearly 180 degree sweep. The views ain’t bad, either. Lift 15 also gives access to the Gold Hill chutes, which require some hiking, but which reward with some of the gnarliest inbounds skiing in the country.

Resting on the Double Cabins Run

Any given day during ski season one can enjoy easy groomers, steep groomers, bump runs that span the range of baby bumps to VW-sized moguls on jaw-dropping steeps. One can go for it from the time the lifts open until they close, take time to enjoy the see-forever views, stop for lunch at Gorrono, Bon Vivant, or outside at Guiseppe’s. A favorite view of the area for me is inside the High Camp warming hut at the top of Lift 12. A glass of wine at Alpino Vino is an event all by itself. I know people whose idea of a perfect day is doing loops on Kant-Mak-M or Lift 6, others for whom Paradise is finding powder long after the last snow, in the trees on Mammoth or alongside Henry’s on Lift 5. Telluride is not a huge ski area, but the variety is staggering. This year will be my 30th season skiing this mountain, and I can say, I never tire of it.

Truly, I was homesick for a place I’d never seen. I came home.

Alpenglow on the San Sofia Ridge, from the Gondola