Our first visit to Telluride was in the summer of 2001. We were working our way home from a trip to Yellowstone and stopped at the KOA in Ouray on the other side of the mountain. The campground had Jeeps for rent complete with trail maps and the camp host said a trip over the mountain for lunch in Telluride was a way place to spend a day. He could not have been more right and we fell in love with the entire area then and there.
We took Ophir Pass west over the mountain and came out onto Highway 145 a few miles south of Telluride. The trail took us past several old abandoned mines and creek crossings. A giant wall of snow greeted us at the top. Turns out the trail had only opened a few days before we got there. The little town of Ophir on the west end of the trail was listed as one of the few towns in Colorado that didn’t have electricity. That would be a long cold winter for me. We ventured up the road and took the right turn into the cute little town of Telluride. I remember it being a nice sunny day so we looked for a place with patio seating for lunch. We ended up at a sandwich shop far up the street. We walked around for a bit but didn’t linger long since we had a mountain pass to climb on our way back.
The way back is over Imogene Pass. The trail starts at the back of town on the north side and climbs toward the back of the box canyon that Telluride sits in. We had been looking for license plates on our trip and we only had Hawaii and Delaware left. There was a detached garage a few houses up on the beginning of the trail that was covered in license plates. Viola! Both Hawaii and Delaware were there on the side of the garage. Our list was complete and thus began the great debate of whether finding them on a building counted. I think it did.
We came to the first abandoned mine on this trail shortly after the switchbacks that climbed us out of the canyon. We lost track of the trail for a hot minute but quickly found our way. As we reached the summit we saw a signpost which we had to check out. It said Imogene Pass, Elevation 13114 feet. Of course we took a picture! The trail now headed down, and was barren for a while as we were above the tree line. Once we got down to foliage, there was a carpet of wildflowers mixed in with trees which gave way to a forest of pine trees and other high altitude plants. We saw a few deer and crossed lots of creeks. The KOA host said the Coors Light can picture was taken on this trail and try as we might, we did not find it. We pulled back into camp in time for dinner, turned in the Jeep and vowed to be back with our own Jeep on the next trip.
Our return trip to that KOA was in July, 2004 on the tail end of a three-week cross-country trip. Our friends Bill and Deb met us there with their two youngest kids, Jared and Corinne. We had our Jeep this trip, a white 1997 Wrangler that we towed behind our Class C. Bill and Deb rented one at the campground and off we went. We hit the trail with more confidence both because it was our second time but also because we bought a Colorado trail book before this trip. There was snow at the top of the Ophir pass again; Bill took a run at it and promptly got stuck. Not to fear, he had a tow strap. But, we didn’t pull him out until we took a few pictures of his predicament. That’s a story that still gets told at campfires. Some things never die.
This time we drove into the mid-mountain town of Mountain Village. We walked around the village center and around the bottom of Chair 4 before hopping onto the gondola for the pretty ride down into Telluride. We looked for the sandwich shop from our first trip but alas, it wasn’t there anymore so we found another patio place for lunch. The kids wanted t-shirts and after finding the perfect one for everyone, we headed back up the gondola to fetch our Jeeps. We headed out that familiar trail from town leading to the Imogene Pass trail and stopped at the abandoned mine at the back of the box canyon for pictures. Of course we stopped at the top for pictures at the Imogene Pass sign. Jared has great eyes for animals and spotted several deer on the way down. We ventured to a new area that we’d found in our book. Could this be where the Coors Light can picture was taken? We took several pictures and checked the cans carefully when we got back to camp and we may have found it. The kids climbed on rocks near the creek while we took pictures and after 30 minutes or so we hit the trail again. Another fun trip over the pass was in the books.
It would be several years until we visited Telluride in the summer again, ten to be exact. Mark and I did a road trip by car and our last stop was Telluride. We stayed at a boutique hotel in Mountain Village, the Lumiere right by Chair 4. The Lumiere is a unique place to stay; it’s an ownership hotel. We stayed in a one bedroom unit that had a nice patio. The Bluegrass Festival was in town that weekend and we were excited to check it out. But first we hiked. We wanted to see our favorite ski lunch place, Alpino Vino, in the summer. We hopped on the free gondola at the Mountain Village station and got off at Station St. Sophia where the mountain bike trails started as well as many hiking trails. Kudos to us, the See Forever trail was a black diamond hike. It’s a solid intermediate ski run and a ton of fun to ski down. Going up was going to be a little harder.
When you’re skiing down See Forever, there are flat spots along the way. You ski, stop at the flat spot then set your course for the next downhill then stop at the next flat spot and so on. The last flat spot is much larger and close to the ski patrol station. That spot in the summer is set up as a wedding venue. There is a large deck that overlooks the mountains. Standing there I was in awe of how good those wedding pictures would look.
But we had a mountain to climb so off we went. Pretty quickly we realized why it’s a black diamond hike. It’s shockingly steep. Coming down on skis it doesn’t feel that steep; but then again I’ve never skied up a mountain. Looking up at the ski run on the far right side sat a series of large wooden squares that served as steps. Who knew they were there all along hiding under the snow? I looked for them on our next ski trip and there was enough snow for them to be completely buried. Up we climbed those stairs and took a water break at the flat spot to check the view. The trail moves to the far left of the ski run and it felt good to be in the shade. It wasn’t a hot day by any means but the shade felt good. Snow dotted the shaded spots and we found some to play in. At the steepest part of the run the trail makes a left and follows the cat trail in a series of switchbacks. Of course you can go straight up the run if you’d like and we saw a couple completely crazy people do that. We even saw one guy running up the ski run. Nuts I tell ya.
The cat trail brought us back to the ski run by the Apex Lift and we walked up the run past the Tempter House and to Alpino Vino. Even though I figured it was closed, my heart sank a bit to find out it really was. I would have paid good money for a sandwich and a glass of wine. We climbed up onto the deck and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that we’d made and washed it down with water. But hey, the scenery was nice. And, I am happy to report the restrooms next to Alpino Vino were open! We started our walk back down and soaked up that view once again. Not as much snow on the mountain tops but just as pretty.
We decided a treat was in order. After all, we’d just hiked almost six miles with an elevation gain of 1,700 feet. We deserved it. The patio at Tomboy Tavern at the base of Chair 4 was open so we decided that was our treat place. Looking at the drink menu Mark decided on a bloody mary. When they say it’s a meal in a glass, they mean it. Besides the normal celery, this thing had a giant prawn, candied bacon, buffalo jerky and olives. And, it was probably the best bloody mary we’d had in a very long time. I don’t remember what we ate but I sure remember that drink.
After our hike it was time to golf. When you drive into Mountain Village, you go right past the golf course but it’s always covered in snow. It was a wish-list course for Mark so he brought his clubs with us. He uses extra long clubs which makes renting them a challenge. He booked a late tee time and I rode along in the cart. I golf but not well and there was no reason to waste money and a lot of balls on this pretty course. I was perfectly happy riding along taking pictures.
It is a really pretty course. We had no idea a hole crossed a ski run or that the driving range was The Meadows ski run in the winter. There are beautiful houses dotting the course as well as an old historic barn. The fairways were somewhat straight, so glad I didn’t play, and the greens were fast. It was really windy which dried them out and made them faster. In my eyes, he played great. He didn’t score as well as he wanted to but we had a fun time. One shot still makes me laugh. He overshot the green and landed in a bunker. It was a short shot, maybe 30 feet but he picked the ball clean and it sailed 50+ yards back down the fairway. Oh how I wish I videotaped it.
The next day was festival day. This was our first Telluride festival. We had no idea that there is something fun going on just about every weekend in the summer. We had dinner at the hotel after our hiking day and overheard people saying they were getting in line at 5am the next morning. Huh? This is a teeny tiny town with a park to match, surely we don’t need to be up at the crack of dawn. We stepped off the gondola down in town a little after 9 and made our way to the park at the back of town with our two short beach chairs never even thinking about what we’d find inside the park fence.
Holy Cow. There were chairs and blankets as far as the eye could see. Uh oh. We miscalculated badly. We walked around trying to figure out just where we were going to sit. There was a main walkway of sorts separating the front section from the back section with trash cans behind the last row of blankets. We plunked our chairs down next to a trashcan making sure we were even with it. After a few minutes Mark fetched us beer. It wasn’t long after he came back that a security guy came over and told us we couldn’t sit there because we were “in the walkway.” Mark nicely pointed out that the backs of our chairs were even with the trashcan and not blocking any traffic flow. The security guy smiled and told us we needed to keep our toes on the blanket in front of us. Okay, we can do that, not a problem at all. After he walked away we high-fived each other and relaxed in our new, trashcan neighboring space.
The music was fantastic. Every band was better than the last. It was our first bluegrass event and didn’t know a single group on stage but the instruments and sounds were addicting. I found myself humming along with the music when we walked around the park for food and beer. The people watching was an entire show in itself. I was mesmerized by the show a few blankets in front of us. A woman was part hippie, part barfly and trying hard to be a dancer. She flowed in a drunken way to the music and you couldn’t help but watch. She knew everyone. In the middle of watching her and the band, the people whose blanket we had our toes parked on sat down. We quickly apologized and she said not to worry then explained the whole blanket protocol to us. So, you get to the park gate no later than 5am to set your chairs/blankets out. Tall chairs are only allowed in the back section, good call of us to bring our short ones. You don’t have to stay with your blanket and while you are gone, other people can and often do sit on empty blankets. When the blanket owner comes back, they can ask you to leave their spot or let you stay. Our blanket owner was really nice since she let our toes stay. They were from Texas and staying at the Lumiere in a suite they owned.
Our last summer trip was in August, 2016 as the last stop of our North Rim and Bryce Canyon trip. We’d driven by this campground, Priest Gulch, on every single ski trip and talked about staying there for years but we never could make it work. This was the year we made it work. It’s open May 1st through mid-October with 88 sites on both sides of the Delores River. Sites along the river are back ins. We decided we’d pull in front first for a better view if we had a riverfront site. There are lots of trees making for great shade camping. Not so great for satellite reception though. On our walk around the park we noticed many people had portable ones in the front of their campsites. We made due by tapping into the wi-fi and watching the Olympics on our Ipad while playing cut throat games of gin rummy.
Our stay was short, only three nights. We arrived before dinner and spent the afternoon walking around the campground and watching people fish. We had two days to play so the first day we drove to Telluride for a hike and a bloody mary.
We hiked See Forever again. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It was later in the summer so there was no snow to play in on our hike. We climbed the familiar box stairs and along the cat trail up to Alpino Vino. There she stood with a pile of wood ready for the ski season. Somebody placed one log at the entrance which made climbing onto the deck a whole lot easier. It’s funny how we ski right up and take one little step onto the deck in the winter. In the summer, that deck is chest high for me. Last time we pretty much hiked alone, only seeing a couple crazy people running up the ski run and this time there were several people. We stopped and talked to many of them, telling them about the bloody mary treat we were going to enjoy at the end.
We changed course at Alpino Vino. Instead of stopping there as our high point, we continued up to the Revelation lift. It was steep. When I say steep here, I really mean it but we made it. I’m game for just about anything but was also very proud inside that we’d added and conquered this hard part to our trek. That was our high point as well as lunch spot for the hike. I don’t ski Revelation Bowl so I’d never been to the top of the lift. The view was larger from this height. While taking in the view we saw an animal not too far away. I pulled out my real camera, my trusty Sony, zoomed in a snapped off a few pictures. Then we zoomed in on the picture I’d just taken for an even better look. It looked kind of like a hairy beaver. Marmot popped into my head. Now we were curious. We had a great cell signal and looked up marmot. Sure enough, that fuzzy guy was really a marmot. We headed down talking about the bloody mary. Looking ahead at the bottom we could see the yellow and white striped umbrella that covered the patio bar. Mmmm, we could almost taste it.
Rudely greeting us as we walked up was a sign that said, “Closed for private event.” What? What about our bloody mary? Dejected, we walked over to Tracks, the other apres ski place we like when we ski. At least they were open. We sat on the patio and ordered their bloody mary. We had bloody mary on the brain and I have to admit, it was pretty good. We felt bad though, watching every single person we’d talk to along the hike walk over to Tomboy Tavern and read that same rude sign. They’d lost at least 10 bloody mary orders that day.
We woke up early on our last day at Priest Gulch and headed north to Telluride again, this time to drive over the mountain for lunch in Ouray. By now this ride is old hat but just as pretty every time. We still stop at the top for a picture although it’s different without the boys in the picture with us. Looking at the foliage and searching for animals along the way is still a thrill as is crossing the creeks. We had a nice lunch at the Ouray Brewery on the roof overlooking the street which made for more great people watching. I heard a Pennsylvania accent in the people sitting next to us and small world, they were from the same town as my mom and knew my aunt.
Up early the next day for the long drive home and we were already talking about the next trip. I think I’ll call Priest Gulch and check availability.