Telluride PhotosPhotos of Telluride Ski Area, Snowboarding, Hiking

According to the press release on the Telluride Ski Resort website, the competition begins on 12/15 and concludes Sunday 12/18.

It’s definitely a great thing to see some of the top athletes in their discipline compete at such a high level … especially in a sport which I happen to love, snowboarding!

What kind of gets at me though is the way the ski resort has set the pricing of a single day lift ticket in Telluride during the “early season” at $73 for an adult through December 17 (then it goes up to regular rate of $98), even though only a limited number of runs are open …. most of which are not exactly within the most challenging terrain to ski or snowboard either.

It’s also easy to see a big chunck of terrain closed off to the public (with a lot of energy being invested to shape it no less). I’m not really sure of the exact percentage of overall open terrain, but I would venture a guess it’s about 10% of all currently open terrain give or take … which is a fair amount even in light of snowmaking/patrol’s best efforts to deploy the rest of the mountain (which to their credit have recently opened up peek-a-boo, ophir loop, and most notable Woosley’s Way [in that it will allow people to do limited-laps on 6]).

Again, I don’t begrudge the competition at all & am all for it’s mutual use co-existence with public use of the ski area; however, what I am opposed to is what I believe to be a disproportionate early season fee of $73 for a single day lift ticket given that:

1.) There is a relatively small amount of terrain open to being with
2.) Complete public accessis curtailed due to the competition is using at least a statistically significant portion of skiable acreage

Again, it’s not the competition, it’s the pricing I don’t like.

If I had the time (maybe I’ll re-visit this later), I’d compare a calculation of the percentage of terrain open vs. the early bird rate as a percentage of the regular rate. My suspicion is there would be an enormous disparity in so far as the early bird rate being a much higher in “cost per open acre (or runs/lifts)” … even if a seasonal average were utilized vs. a best possible total acres open.

I don’t know, maybe the high rate could be intentional as a means of delivering “negative advertising” to dissuade larger numbers of skier visits due to safety/capacity issues?

I realize the competition will be over within a week, so it’s not a permanent issue and I’m not looking harp on competitors for doing what they love to do … especially since we share a similar “love of the game”. It’s really about how the ski area is “rolling with this” in so far as keeping the lift tickets at $73 which bothers me.

I suppose it might be considered arbitrary for me to say $50 is fine, but $73 is not … although I’m willing to bet a lot of business owners would agree that lower ticket rates during times of relatively lean snow would have a positive influence on the local economy … especially when visitors are more keen on following weather and snowfall trends online and deciding where to go more at a moment’s notice. I realize the ski company needs to cover it’s costs and so forth, but I wonder if they’ve considered building in a “reserve fund” to make flexible downward adjustments as needed? I’ve seen lots of capital improvements recently, almost too many to mention … so it’s difficult to say. Having the full rate pushing $100 might also be a part of the equation … maybe from their current starting point, a $73 ticket represents a sufficient discount. Not looking to minimize the number of factors at play in pricing considerations, but just saying that it’s kind of getting out of hand from my perspective. Who knows really, but I just know I’m not exactly a fan of the pricing.

Regardless of all my ramblings, I do wish all of the competitors the best of luck and to enjoy the moment (& your stay)!

I saw Pretty Lights at the Telluride Mountain Village Conference Center this weekend. It wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, but it was still fun. Mostly a younger crowd, many of whom were visiting from out of town, I barely saw any of the usual locals suspects who see live music on a regular basis around town.

Pretty Lights Telluride Mountain Village Conference Center 2010

Speaking of which, there really hasn’t been a lot of live music lately … which is a shame given that many bands will visit Colorado mountain towns yet Telluride seems to get skipped a lot. I believe Pretty Lights is the only show which was booked at the conference center between now and the recently announced Leftover Salmon show on February 25, 2011 … which you can still get tickets at:

http://leftovertickets.jambasetickets.com/evlist.php

Saturday marked the day where lifts 5 & 6 were fired up and carried skiers to the top of lift 6 for a version of what is known as “going around the horn” with an egress for skiers and snowboards to make their way down the See Forever Ridgeline back down to the bottom lift 4. The terrain under lifts 5 and 6 are actually closed until we receive more snow, so it’s currently just a way to access Upper See Forever.

This actually helps tremendously to relieve some of the pressure created by a lot of skiers & snowboarders who are confined to a relatively small area … since it spreads people (of differing ability levels) out over more terrain. The top layer of snow is mostly man-made, but is actually of good quality and coverage.

I’ve continued my pursuit to try and learn to snowboard with a goofy stance for my second day on the mountain in Telluride. While it’s clear it’s going to be quite a challenge to attain the level of expertise and confidence I’ve been used to with a regular stance, I have made more progress & am at least feeling slightly more comfortable. Started to feel a pain in my left quad, which I take as a good sign in that I’m starting to achieve a better posture. I don’t know exactly what’s in store, but I can see that it’s going to be an incremental learning process whereby I will need to practice patience … but breakthroughs will happen. Having said that, I switched the bindings on my snowboard back to regular for my final ride down … since I was kind of stuck at the bottom of lift 6 when there were mechanical issues. I realize too, that it will help to ride regular a bit too … simply to experience the “correct” way in hopes I can mimic it on a goofy stance.

Otherwise, the word I kept hearing on the mountain is that many folks are upset regarding the whole charging for parking at the TMV parking structure.

… is coming to a close today. It’s always an interesting festival to observe from the outside, and I’m sure is even moreso if one participates directly. Below is a photo of some specimens which were harvested in the region and placed under it’s proper location (with full name and photos) after it’s been positively identified.

They normally partition the tables into poisonous and non-poisonous species of mushrooms.

Phish took the stage in Telluride Town Park on August 9th and 10th for what was a very memorable set of shows. The band seemed to be in excellent form and was one of the more sought after tickets on the summer tour. Tickets were being scalped on the street for upwards of a few hundred dollars per ticket; however, there was not the major crowds of ticketless phans which people had feared might show up and overwhelm the town.

Given that the past few weeks have been VERY rainy, it was amazing to see the weather as almost perfect with clear skies and zero precipitation.

The highlights for me were the covers: Quinn The Eskimo, Light Up Or Leave Me Alone, A Day In The Life, and Walk Away, but also liked the Possum from the first night and Divided Sky the second.

Here’s a shot of the tarp line heading into the venue on the 9th at about 5:15:

Phish In Telluride

Phish

Telluride sunset at Phish Concert

You can see in the photo below that Elks Park in the center of the Town of Telluride was packed pretty tightly to see the Punch Brothers outside on a sunny day.  The Elks Park venue has traditionally been a much smaller scaled venue which is offered as a free series of events (most of which are very high quality) to those who wish to attend.   In addition to actual musical performances, there are also often:  interviews/panels,  workshops, competitions, etc.

Just saw Peter Rowan and Crucial Country (with Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and I believe Edgar Meyer) this afternoon … who were excellent — a definite super group of sorts.    I will post some short video clips samples soon.

I received an alert notification about about 5:30 MST from the San Miguel County automated emergency/alert noficiation system that there is currently a forest fire burning near Norwood Hill and that traffic was closed on 145 in both directions.   I’m not sure of the current status of the highway closure, but I can definitely see a red haze in the air although I can’t really smell very much up here in Ophir or in Telluride.

The winds have been steadily strong, so that doesn’t help matters.

The weather was a excellent today in Telluride for a change, quite possibly the best day of 2010 in terms of summer like weather at about 70 degrees and mostly sunny.   I’ve loaded Ophir, Telluride, Durango, Montrose, and Grand Junction as presets on the default weather app on my iTouch and have noticed that Ophirs temps have typically been 4-6 degrees cooler than Telluride; however, it’s important to remember that Ophir is about 1000 feet higher in elevation.

There seemed to be more visitors in town last weekend, and I suspect there will be even more before this weekend if the nice weather   holds!  Of course the following weekend is Memorial Day Weekend, which is traditionally when the Telluride Mountain Film Festival takes place.

One spot visitors frequently go to is the Telluride Historical Museum pictured below:

Although I’ve lived in the area since 1995, this is a building I’ve never been inside, but would be very interested one day.  Apparently, this building was built in 1886 as a hospital.  Since it’s at the base of town off of Tomboy road, I’ve always envisioned miners frantically scrambling down that hillside just above the building to bring the bad news of an injury at one of the mines in the high country.

It has been roughly a month and half since the lifts stopped running at the Telluride Ski Area, but old man winter has been very reluctant to release his grip. I think if it were a “wise woman winter” instead, she’d be much more forgiving!

While many a local resident have taken some time off to travel to warmer climates such as Moab, UT or even more tropical destinations, those of us who’ve stayed have simply had to grin and bear it you want to simply hang outdoors (although there’s still plenty of backcountry skiiing and snowboarding opportunities). Here’s a shot of main street in Telluride in between waves of sleet/snow:

Aside from possibly work for some folks, one popular indoor activity is visiting such as visiting the Wilkinson Public Library In Telluride, pictured below:

I’ve finally been able to update a graphical meter which measures the time from the Winter Solstice to the Summer Solstice. Hopefully, with some spare time, I plan to update this to be much more robust.

Here are a couple pictures of the aftermath of the Baked In Telluride fire I’ve been meaning to post. While it’s great to hear Jerry Greene (owner) planning for the future, it is still sad to see the old building go. You can click on photos to see full size.