Mea Culpa, and a Return to the Present

Our bad.

Though I guess the fact that we haven't updated the blog in a while means that we're constantly busy experiencing our travels, instead of communicating them. We'll go with that explanation.

So...Greetings from Telluride, CO! We're about to start the very last leg of our trip, that which heads home to the East. For the last few days, however, we've been basking in an unexpected dump of powdery snow. Tara's friend from age 9, Karissa, has been extremely gracious in welcoming us into her amazing mountainside home, and we've been taking full advantage [and picking up ski bum language. GAME: see how many times this post uses skier slang!].

The daylight hours have mostly been spent skiing, snowboarding, and generally crushing it. Our first day, Karissa and Justin took Tara and Rachel out for a locals' tour of the mountain. Luckily, our day at the Canyons in Park City, UT, had served as our ski-shock day, and we were mostly ready for the trees, deep snow, and hidden faces to which we were ably led. By the end of the morning, we felt significantly more comfortable on the mountain and even more so dealing with the varying terrain and snow styles of the Rockies. We met up with Annie for lunch, and the dynamic threesome spent the afternoon making turns in Prospect Bowl. Rachel, who has apparently become more of a powderhound than she would like to admit, spent most of her time seeking out the last vestiges of the recent storm. As most of these "powder" "stashes" involved some sort of uphill climb or slog through deep snow to get to them, Tara found her access unfortunately limited due to her snowboarding ways. In the meantime, Annie worked incredibly hard at getting her skiing legs under her and seemed vastly more skilled on her two fiberglass even from the morning to the end of the afternoon.

Muscles sore, various body parts hurting, Annie, Tara, and Rachel retired to the house to find Sara feeling considerably better (she had felt a little under the weather earlier in the day) and Julia gone on an exploratory trip down to the town of Telluride. Annie looked around the kitchen and instantly felt inspired by a bag of blue corn tortilla chips. "Nachos!" she may or may not have announced, very loudly. So we set about grating cheese, slicing olives, and dicing strawberries. YES, strawberries. The secret ingredient to incredible nachos. Though, unfortunately (?), now no longer a secret.

Post-delicious experience, we hot tubbed for a bit, including a dip in the snow, then proceeded to make dinner. Our plans to join the rest of the fabulous fivesome in town were derailed by overwhelming senses of tiredness and a report that downtown "seemed dead" on the Thursday night. An accidental good decision, as we were due for a few inches that night.

The next morning (Friday, 2/13), we woke bright and early with hopes for a powder day. We saw about 5 inches of new, fluffy, sparking snow as soon as we left the house. Not huge by Alta standards, but still exciting for those of us unlucky enough not to be there. Tara and Rachel skied the mountain sort of backwards, but were quite proud of themselves for finding Revelation Bowl, a wide open concave mountain face covered in snow. Due to their relatively late discovery (it was about 10:30am), the Bowl was fairly tracked out and a little crowded. The snow was still tons of fun, and the terrain felt huge. After charging pretty hard for most of the morning, quads burning with the effort of making beautiful turns through piles of snow, Tara and Rachel met up with Sara and Annie for lunch. Just as the day before, the newly conglomerated group skied together for a while. Sara, unfortunately, got a little separated from the others when the trail we had agreed to follow to Lift 5 didn't actually end up at Lift 5. That's what we get for not reading the map, I guess. We took some great intermediate runs that allowed Tara and Rachel to shoot off through trees in search of fun snow and still meet up with Annie at the bottom of the lift without too much waiting around.

Julia took advantage of a clear day to tour some of the other old mining towns in the area, including Ouray, Silverton, and another. She took a number of really cool pictures of the dusty towns turned cute, and brought back some sweet souvenirs. Most importantly, Julia SAW BIGHORN SHEEP. She even has pictures to prove it. The excitement was palpable when she told the rest of us, as we've been hankering to see them since Arches (but that story will come in a later post).

That evening, we actually ventured into town. A free gondola took us from Mountain Village (the village on the mountain, shockingly enough) to "downtown," i.e. the town of Telluride. Two officially separate towns, Telluride and Mountain Village have completely different vibes. The town nestles in the end of a box canyon, the walls of which are riddled with shafts from 19th century gold and silver mines. Historically, the lawless mining town had a horrendous reputation. Legend has it that the name originates from people yelling "To Hell you ride" after those who rode away for the rowdy mining town. The clapboard buildings lining Colorado Ave (the main street) included a number of brothels and saloons. The modern-day town has lost most of the lawless feel it once had, but has managed to retain a sense of grittiness that the multi-million dollar log homes of Mountain Village decidely lack. Just walking down Colorado Ave (the main drag) evokes a sense of timelessness, as if a drunk miner could be kicked out of the door to the New Sheridan at any moment. One can almost hear the clink of geologist hammers against the rock, feel the ragged desperation of men, women, and children whose very lives depend on extracted ore and the rise and fall of silver prices.

Telluride was practically dead by the mid-20th century. The mines were spent, the early dairies obsolete. Towns like Aspen and Vail had already boomed into the sprawling leisure centers that they are today. In the 1970s, ski promoters came to Telluride with a different vision (at least, according to how they tell it): to create a world-class ski resort without the urban sprawl, the fur shops, and the attitude linked with the outposts of Manhattan in Colorado ski country. Apparently, the plan as worked, though maybe with a few unforeseen twists: for at least the last two decades, Telluride has boomed. An empty lot in town doesn't sell for less than a cool million, and houses with six car garages seem to spring up every week in Mountain Village. Lift tickets are an outrageous $92 a day, and it is nearly impossible for community's working members to live anywhere close to their jobs.

And yet... The mountain is gorgeous. The town sits around 9,000 ft above sea level; the tallest lift reaches 12,500. Looking out from the chairlift, the gondola into town, the deck of Karissa's house, one feels on top of the world. The sheer faces of San Juan peaks flow into rounded shoulders where aspens stand in large, genetically undifferentiated clumps. The shoulders themselves are cut by the San Miguel River, creating a multi-tiered landscape that seems even more massive than it already is. Telluride is truly one of the most beautiful places on earth.

But back to our night on the town. We went to "The Buck," otherwise known as the Last Dollar Saloon, to check out the local crowd. Rachel had some pretty fond memories of the place from her stint as a travel guide writer, and the margaritas definitely lived up to them. Tara even spotted someone famous, though we're not exactly sure of his name. Some bald comedian with a gap between his front teeth. Any ideas?

We were pretty wiped from another bomber day on the mountain, so we headed back up the gondola in search of our beds. The timing almost worked so that our very own Julia could spend the first few minutes of her 24th birthday on the gondola, but alas, we were a bit too early. The magical moment happened instead in the Dial-A-Ride mondo-SUV that gave us a free ride from the gondola station to Karissa's house.

Day 3 (Saturday, Feb 14, Valentine's Day, Julia's Birthday!) of our Telluride experience started a little bit on the later side. Two hard skiing days at altitude were definitely catching up with us, and we all needed our sleep (besides Annie, who generally rises before the alarm, much to our general amazement). We all were hitting the slopes that day, even Julia! We were pretty excited to spend at least part of the day all together on the mountain. With our meet-up plans in place, the various parties split off to try their luck on the mountain. The wind was buffeting the mountain so much so that we could see snow being scoured from the unlucky faces. Tara and Rachel put their heads together and tried to figure out where, exactly, the snow was ending up. We guessed Revelation Bowl.

Tara and Rachel gazed over the rim of Revelation, trying to see if the bowl was as buffed as they thought it might be. After about a minute of standing in the nearly howling wind, they shrugged their shoulders, muttered something about how "there's only one way to find out," and went after it. As soon as Rachel's skis left the scoured cat track, they cut through the windbuffed snow ("buff") like a hot knife through butter. The bowl was perfectly situated for maxium buff: the wind blew away all evidence of previous tracks, just as it loaded the far side with snow. Sick turn followed sick turn alongside the screaming cries of protesting leg muscles. By the time we rode the lift back to the top, our tracks had been obliterated by the wind and fresh, creamy snow was again in our path. Free refills (sort of), baby. Definitely the best snow on the mountain at that point, and yet no one was skiing it. It seemed that the very force molding the amazing, creamy buff was also keeping away the faint of heart. Epic.

Various other skiing/snowboarding things happened...

The real excitement happened later that night, at the Rubiks Cube party. The scene: about 20 twenty-somethings (mostly locals, some randos like us) dressed only in the colors that appear on a Rubiks Cube. There are 6: red, yellow, orange, white, blue, and green. Very, very bold colors. The "goal" is to switch clothes with people so that by the end of the night, you are all one color. A lot of choice can be involved, so it's not nearly as sketchy as it sounds. It did lead to a number of hilarious exchanges, however, including Karissa's [male] friend walking around in a blue velour dress over black long underwear tights for much of the night.

That was last night. Annie got a head start on most this morning and tackled one of the more challenging parts of the mountain. Sara left early as well, rocking out to her iPod and shredding some gnar gnar on her board. Tara and Rachel, on the other hand, slept in a bit and decided it was finally time for the Day of Silly. They unsnarled an unnecessarily complicated logistical question of which equipment to wear where when, ate breakfast, and embarked upon a day of discovery.

Discovery of what, you may ask? Well, we aimed to discover whether Tara still knew how to ski and whether Rachel could pick up telemark skiing by watching people from the lifts (and desperately wanting to know how to do it). Rachel rented a pair of tele skis, Tara borrowed Rachel's groomer skis. At first, the experiment didn't seem to go so well. Rachel kept overbalancing, twisting her torso too much when she pole planted and not really bending her legs enough to create a real tele turn (or lunge, for that matter). Tara seemed to be doing okay, but early questions like, "How do I turn?" made for some serious hilarity. By the end of their second amazingly long green run (about 45 minutes for the first, about half an hour for the second), both seemed to have things more or less under control. Neither were to be speed demons at any point of the day, but Rachel definitely strung together a few nice looking turns and Tara began playing around on her edges like a pro. By mid-afternoon, however, exhaustion set in and informed the switch back to regular gear. Tara, Rachel, and Annie raced down groomers to their hearts' delight and until the very last chair. It was certainly one of the most fulfilling days spent entirely on green runs an experienced skier/snowboarder could imagine.

We leave Telluride bright and early tomorrow (Monday) morning and begin our monotonous trek east. We spent most of this evening packing and organizing, though we did take a break for a lovely meal of pesto and tomato pasta (and what was left of Julia's amazing birthday cake for which Annie made delicious homemade frosting). Needless to say, it will be very difficult to leave this gorgeous place full of wonderful people.