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Author: Telluwriter TIO

by Sue Hobby and Amy Boebel

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After 26 hours of travel, we got to Wellington at 10 am.

The day we got in we went to the dress rehearsal for the show - it is held in a huge space and was packed with people taking advantage of the discounted tickets. The show runs two hours long without an intermission which they alert the audience to - so the bladder challenged can scoot out.  Sue, Luci, Jeanie, Helen and I bought a bottle of champagne and some cups and settled into the second row in front.

There are seven catagories of garments and our section, "Folded," includes 29 outfits. In total, there are about 165 pieces worn by 40 models

25 September, 2009 /
(editor's note: Telluride local, David Allen, was the driving force behind the CAST Challenge, a six month long contest to see which mountain town could do the most to reduce one-use plastic bags. TIO was happy to publish weekly articles about the efforts of ski communities to meet the challenge. Thanks, David, for your activism. And thanks to the businesses that sponsored the contest. Following is the press release summing up the Challenge.)

September 22, 2009

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The town of Basalt, CO wins the Colorado Association of Ski Towns (CAST) Reusable Bag Challenge, which came to end September 1. Collectively, participating towns eliminated the consumption of an estimated 5.3-million single-use disposable bags.  “It’s been a great success,” says David Allen, the program’s creator.  “The results are better then I projected, and the project has received some impressive attention.  Media outlets have covered the CAST Challenge as far away as Italy!”

The CAST Reusable Bag Challenge was a competition between 31 mountain towns in the Western United States to encourage the use of reusable shopping bags and raise awareness of the economic, environmental, and social impacts of single-use shopping bags. The Challenge began on March 1st 2009 and the prize to the winning town is a solar panel installation on their public school.  Alpine Bank and PCL Construction sponsored the voluntary program to the tune of $10,000 toward the solar panel installation.
22 September, 2009 /

[Editor's Note: In time for the 16th annual Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, this weekend, September 18– 20, anthropologist/cook book author Dr. Susanna Hoffman has come up with a recipe for elk (or other game meat) and brews.]

by Dr. Susanna Hoffman
April Cabin 013 Denver is Telluride's big sister city today, but back in the days of the wild, wooly West both were prosperous mining towns.

Young Denver was a rich gold-rush city, a way station for many wagon trains and cattle drives, and a merchant capitol where intrepid folks crossing the mountains could stock up on whatever goods they needed. Back then, Denver was relatively small, edging towards half million hardy souls, surrounded by open plains and, just up the road a piece, mountains teeming with game. In young Denver, it was easy to eat buffalo, elk, moose, and pronghorn. Any good butcher had the meats as did some of the finer eating establishments such as El Rancho, The Old Navarre, and the Wiltshire Country Club. I never lost my taste for the game morsels I acquired as a girl and mourned their disappearance from shops and restaurants as more and more people, along with mega-chain grocery stores, invaded my hometown.  

16 September, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Shawna talking with Nicole Finger]


By Shawna Hartley

Little India SM Telluride painter Nicole Finger shows her newest work at Honga’s Lotus Petal restaurant, Main Street, Telluride, starting September 3. The artist's reception is 3 - 5p.m.

Finger's portraits include local children as well as young innocents from around the globe: India, Africa and Nepal. These faces express the total lack of guile and inhibition and the complete confidence we tend to lose all to soon with the passing of years, once we learn our place in society.

03 September, 2009 /

by Kris Holstrom

019 It’s mid-summer in Telluride! Nights seem cooler than usual though the days are warm and the monsoons haven’t really materialized. We’ve got fires smoking up our atmosphere and early frosts on nearby mesas. Hmmm. Global weirding once again? The only thing predictable is unpredictability.

For those concerned about global climate issues there are local actions you can take right now.  San Miguel Power has two renewable energy initiatives that fund the Renewable Energy Fund (green fund). All SMPA members (anyone who gets an electric bill) are encouraged to participate in both programs. The amount of money SMPA is able contribute to local renewable energy and energy conservation projects is dependent upon the number of participating members in these programs. So more support for these programs means more support for local renewable energy. Here’s their info on the programs.

19 August, 2009 /

The girls lined up School will start again soon – for our children in Telluride and the girls at the orphanage/school in Kardze, Eastern Tibet. It’s time to gather supplies, buy some new school clothes and try on a new backpack; what’s routine for our children could become reality for the 108 girls in Tibet as well -- with your help.

• A bit of background:

LAmdrak Rinpoche by Om Mane Kardze lies in the eastern Tibetan province of Kham, famous for its fierce –and dashing- horsemen, fantastic monasteries, vast grasslands dotted with yaks and nomads’ tents, and a strong sense of cultural/ethnical identity. A local tulku (re-incarnated lama) by the title Lamdrakh Rinpoche oversees a cheerful nunnery there as well as the Tibetan Health center, and has established the home and school for girls. He wants to make sure that these future mothers will be prepared to raise the next generation well. Presently, there are 108 girls enrolled, from age 4 to 16. Some are orphans, some were abandoned due to severe poverty or illness in the family, some were handed to the school so that they could get a Tibetan education. They live and learn in a gorgeous, traditional home in extremely crowded conditions. Divided into 5 classes they learn Tibetan, English, Chinese and math.

18 August, 2009 /

by Warner Paige Telluride Chamber Music Festival and the Stronghouse Studio have officially launched "The Violin on Parade Project."Area artists transformed ten violins, with freedom to interpret their artistic visions into unique works of art and two artists created a sculpture that includes the violin....

13 August, 2009 /

by Kris Holstrom

Citizen Scientists It was a trip down memory lane for me last week when I participated in the U.S. Forest Service ‘citizen scientists’ training on the Uncompahgre Plateau. I have a degree in Forest Management from Utah State University from many, many years ago. It is a field I’ve always loved and actually worked in for several summers before moving into horticultural pursuits, organic farming and sustainability coordinating. This experience was a wonderful renewal of those memories.

The Forest Service is embarking on an interesting project aimed at restoring healthy forest conditions on the UP. They will be doing treatments on about 17,000 acres and need to monitor the results. The goal is to restore the more natural open meadow and widely spaced ponderosa pines in some areas – and reduce fuel loads so natural wildfires can occur without devasting effects in other areas (more frequent, low intensity burns rather than occasionally high intensity burns).

12 August, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear Eileen's conversation with Jen Santry about Summit County's participation]


by Eileen Burns

IMG_7864 Summer is in full swing and so is the CAST Challenge.  The Colorado Association of Ski Towns (or CAST) has been holding a plastic bag challenge since March 1st, with more than 30 ski towns participating, including the Summit County towns of Breckenridge, Frisco, Dillon and Silverthorn.  The concept behind this friendly competition between ski towns, is to reduce consumption of single-use, disposable shopping bags by using your own shopping bag and to educate the public on the environmental and social costs associated with single-use plastic bags.  

Assistant Director, Jen Santry, of High Country Conservation Center (HC3) explains that Summit County has been participating in a BYOB (bring you own bag) program for years and when they were invited to participate in the CAST Challenge they eagerly accepted.  Summit county has around 30,000 year round residents and up to 100,000 people in the area during the peak ski season.  That could add up to a lot of plastic bag consumption, but the programs are working and people are getting more in the habit of bringing their own bags when they shop.  "It is not about winning the challenge, although that would be great.  These programs help educate the public and effect change," explains Santry.  HC3 provides programs, services, and advocacy in the areas of waste reduction, energy conservation, green building, and even climate change.

19 July, 2009 /

Are you overwhelmed with papers you would like to get rid of?  Do you have old tax documents, bank statements, credit card solicitations, medical records, and other personal documents needing to be destroyed?  Then, join Alpine Bank and Colorado Document Security for the 1st Annual...

15 July, 2009 /