Two days in Telluride

Last week my friend Nick and his wife Holly invited me on a quick trip with them to Telluride for two days of skiing. I couldn't turn down the opportunity and much needed break from my schoolwork.

Here is a little music to go with this TR. This Alpha Blondie song was used for the Telluride segment in Greg Stumps cult classic Blizzard of Aahhh's.



From Flagstaff any journey to the San Jauns of Colorado starts with traveling across Navajo country. The Res is a beautiful, mysterious, and dangerous place. The people are among the poorest within the United States. Many homes still don't have electricity or running water.

"The world we suggest is a new wild west. A sensuous evil world. Strange and haunting, the path of the sun." Jim Morrison.

The brave new west.


The Baby Rocks and a trailer.


"Getting drunk was good. I decided that I would always like getting drunk. It took away the obvious and maybe if you could get away from the obvious often enough, you wouldn't become obvious yourself." Charles Bukowski.

"Two dollars? How about a five?"


Colorado Avenue, Telluride.


Nick and I had hoped to spend a lot of time hiking the terrain on Gold Hill and Palmyra and finishing the trip with a tour to the San Joaquin Couloir but unfortunately with a mostly snowless three weeks prior, the conditions in the back country were what we would describe as difficult or challenging at best. We decided that our time would be better spent skiing the area and chasing the sun for good snow.

The San Joaquin Couloir with Tempter Bowl in the foreground.


Holly drops into Mountain Quail.


"You can discern the pessimist from the optimist by just looking at how people react to snow." Iveta Cherneva.

Nick makes his way up the Palmyra shoulder.


Cute renovated miners cabins that sell for around two million dollars today.

"Well take me the way. To the next whiskey bar. Oh don't ask why. Oh don't ask why." Alabama Song, the Doors.

For 5 dollars you get strong cocktails in a pint glass at the Buck.

Nick harvests the corn on Milk Run.


Chair 9 and the bumps of Kant-Mak-M.


Revelation Bowl from the observation deck.


Looking down at town through Bear Creek Canyon.
. So even though conditions were less than ideal for the kind of skiing we were hoping for it didn't matter. Telluride has plenty of skiing for all abilities and conditions. I actually had so much fun buzzing steep groomers while we waited for things to soften up. If you haven't been there it should definitely be on your list. It's a skiers mountain and one of the most classic quintessential mountain towns in the world. The scenery isn't so bad either.

Wow those runs are steep!!

There goes my trip report :)

Recently back from a week in Telluride. Thanks for sharing. Great town, fun mountain.

Nice.  To Hell you Ride!   Not.  More like to Heaven you ride..

Thanks for sharing RA!  

Sounds like a great trip despite snow conditions.  Actually, the snow conditions sound similar to when I visited Telluride last winter.  I loved skiing Mountain Quail, plus the line right before MQ, Dihedral Chute IIRC.  Those lines held the best snow that I found in my 3 days there.   Great photo, really captures the scale of the place (I had mostly overcast / partly socked in conditions):

raisingarizona wrote

Holly drops into Mountain Quail.

I remember thinking Holy Shit, hard to believe people ski this (San Joaquin couloir).  Looks likes an elevator shaft:

raisingarizona wrote

The San Joaquin Couloir with Tempter Bowl in the foreground.

Telluride is a steep mountain Sno but there is a ton of lower angle groomed stuff too. I never paide much attention to groomer skiing before but with the weather this trip we were forced to ski them first thing in the morning and it was awesome! Telluride has some of the best steep groomer skiing I have ever done. It's almost scary how quickly you get going crazy fast!

ADK, The San Joaquin isn't as bad as it looks. The narrow crux might hit 50 degrees for a little while but the overall pitch is between 40 to 45. That's steep but with good snow it's very manageable. I have skied it once but with terrible snow, I didn't care to do that again and after having to buy a lift ticket (my marketing department hook up has moved on :(  ...) we felt that our time was better spent doing lift laps.

These kinds of conditions are typical here in the southwest. We get a lot of long dry spells with very warm temperatures. Luckily the grooming they do is super impressive. Our second day things warmed up a lot and we got to ski all kinds of terrain with soft snow by one o-clock or so.

takeahike46er wrote

There goes my trip report :)

Recently back from a week in Telluride. Thanks for sharing. Great town, fun mountain.

The more the merrier. Lets see some pictures!