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Tim McGough took some time out of a crowded schedule to talk to me last week. Tim is the new program director at Telluride Adaptive Sports Program, and is very busy getting up to speed in this new position. There is training to schedule for the instructors and volunteers, returning and new, for the upcoming season. In addition, school groups, who represent a large part of TASP's client base have to have their time blocked out, and requests for lessons are beginning to come in from our out-of-town guests.

So I was glad that Tim was able to spend some time with me. In the interest of full disclosure, this will be my 10th season as an instructor for TASP. So the conversation was much more about how to make the most out our mutual relationship than an interview. I'll do that later in the season, but I did want to introduce Tim to our readers. Following is the bio I received from TASP.

30 October, 2008 /

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Autumn, Rudy's Trail

“Where will you spend the night?” Rico was concerned because I was getting a late start. It had snowed the night before in Aspen, and because I was traveling on a motorcycle I had delayed my departure for the Canyonlands until the roads cleared a little. “Oh, I guess I’ll stop in Telluride.” Someone had talked about the Telluride Bluegrass Festival at a musical get-together in the garden of Le Select in St. Barths the previous winter, and I had read an article about the skiing in Telluride some time before in Outside Magazine. Now it was after noon on a late October day, and I was on my way to camp outside Moab, Utah. Rico said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Then, a meaningful pause, followed by, “You’ll never leave.”

29 October, 2008 /

Ok, maybe not Seattle exactly, but across the lake in Bellevue, last night Clint and I hooked up with part-time Telluride local and former Mountainfilm director Arlene Chester Burns at the Bellevue Art Museum. The get-together was to celebrate the opening of an exhibition of...

17 October, 2008 /

Sus interviewing Amb. Richard Holbrooke  For me, it is difficult to leave Telluride in any season, but particularly so in the Autumn. In the few days we were home between travels, Susan and I spent every possible moment outdoors, mostly hiking in the...

15 October, 2008 /

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Officially Mr. & Mrs. Vroom

Some reporter was sleeping on the job to have missed this gem for the New York Times Sunday Styles “Vows” feature.

It was adult entertainment at its best – vintage Cole Porter, not “Boogie Nights.”

And it was not just a Big Deal. It was Brobdingnagian.

10 September, 2008 /

The Women’s Travel Company is owned and operated by Telluride locals Wendy Brooks and Donna Fernald.

P1010008The Telluride Academy is the local institution Wendy Brooks founded in her backyard in 1981. A single mom with three young boys of her own, Brooks started the daycare/camp to help her friends. The initial enrollment was six kids. Today, up to 850 students, ages 5 – 17, attend about 100 unique summer course and specialized programs.

06 September, 2008 /

Once the cat is out of the bag  – the directors of the Telluride Film Festival are notorious for keeping their selections top secret – and the weekend is in full swing, the “buzz” drives the traffic. Perfect strangers become fast friends chatting on line and at venues all over town about what’s hot and what’s not.

At a Monday morning screening of Götz Spielmann’s classic-in-the-making “Revanche” (see Views below), the elegant woman next to me introduced herself to talk the talk. “My name is Linda Clough. I am Chuck Jones’s daughter,” she said.

04 September, 2008 /

Everyone knows my white minivan. It is the standard suburban working mom mobile. At least it is all-wheel drive so I can make it to the local ski slope and distinguishable from the multitude of other white minivans only by the flames that adorn the quarter panels. My flames are my little rebellion against the soccer mom image I now embody.


Oddly enough I drive a minivan by choice. Yes, yes, I realize this surprises you, no one actually chooses to drive a minivan – except me. My reasons are simple; it is the one vehicle into which I can load all (and I mean all) of the necessary toys for a family of four. Bikes, surf boards and kayaks can go on top, skis, snowboards, wake boards, skim boards, appropriate foot wear, coolers and all of the necessary apparel plus the four of us can fit inside. The kids even have enough room so they aren’t killing each other along the way. It all makes my life in Pittsburgh tenable.


That is another choice that some may question. How does someone so committed to the mountain lifestyle find herself in Pittsburgh…by choice? The answer comes in a package that is about 6 feet tall, dark hair and bedroom eyes – and now the father of my two children. Having lived in Colorado for longer than I’d lived anywhere in my life I found it hard to understand why anyone would want to live anywhere else. When Greg told me he was from Pittsburgh I said “That is a great place to be from.” Little did I know two years later I would willingly pack all of my belongings, my cat and my dog to move here.


31 August, 2008 /