Telluride: Colorado's best kept secret?

Below you will find a link to a recent article about Telluride in the Denver Post. I have also pasted the article in the text below. I hope to see you in Telluride this winter. The snow has been falling all day today! For info on Telluride real estate contact Buzz Fedorka at buzz@fedorka.com

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_13620417


Telluride: Colorado's best-kept secret?
By Kyle Wagner Denver Post Travel Editor

The view of Telluride's slopes and bowls astounds. (Telluride Ski Resort )
Raise your hand if you've never skied Telluride.
You're certainly not alone. Chances are you've never even visited Telluride, and you're not alone there either.
To the locals, that's one of the many reasons that it's so great to be among the slightly fewer than 2,400 people living in this former silver mining town tucked up against the San Juan Mountains.
"It's not one of the drop-in places," says Alicia Nogueira, who moved to Telluride 18 years ago from San Francisco. "You have to plan to come here, and that brings people with a different purpose. They really want to be here, as opposed to, 'Oh, I'm here because that other place was full.' "
That's what Telluride Ski Resort founder Joe Zoline was banking on when he put in the first ski lift in 1972.
A skier cuts a swath through Revelation Bowl, the newest cluster of runs.
Joe Morita bought the resort in 2002 from Ron Allred and his partners, who purchased it from Zoline in 1979. Morita then doubled the skiable terrain by adding Prospect Bowl. A private investment group took over in 2003 and added Black Iron Bowl in 2007 and Revelation Bowl last year. Now the ski area sports more than 2,000 skiable acres, and at 13,150 feet, has the highest skiable terrain in the United States that you can hike to (its highest lift-served skiable terrain sits at 12,570) — not to mention some of the most sought-after, as freeskiers from all over the world come to practice for World Cup events and compete in the qualifiers held here annually.
But for the most part, the resort, like the town, has retained its quirky character — even as celebrities (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, makeup mogul Bobbi Brown, diplomat Richard Holbrooke and Ralph Lauren with his mega-ranch up the road, to name a few) followed the hippies famous for having followed the miners in discovering Telluride's isolated charms.
Thrown into the mix is an ever-increasing number of festivals — possibly the most festivals per capita in the country. They include the world-famous Telluride Bluegrass Festival, the Telluride Film Festival, the Blues and Brews and the Mountainfilm Fest. It reached a point in 1991 that the town added a "Nothing Festival" as a half-hearted protest.
A four-legged visitor waits while two-legged ones partake of the town's hip shops and dining.
Nogueira considers herself to be more of a hippie type. She owns Bali Dog, a shop that sells handpainted yoga pants from Brazil. In San Francisco, she had been a computer-graphic artist but also a yoga instructor. She was looking for a calmer way of life, but one that also incorporated her love of skiing and the outdoors.
"I had skied since I was 16, in Switzerland, and when I visited Telluride, some friends said, 'You should move here and teach,' and I thought, 'You guys are crazy,' " she says. "But then I decided I would just come and spend a winter and just hang out. Yeah, that was the plan, and I came and fell in love with the place, and so then I stayed a summer, and wow, the summer is great. That hooked me. So the next year I bought a house."
Nogueira started teaching yoga, but also became a ski instructor and taught ski school for Telluride Ski Resort, and had daughter Olivia Nogueira-Wheaton, now 12. They explore Telluride together, reveling in the outdoor activities that a town nestled in a box canyon and carved by a glacier have to offer.
"We go snowshoeing in the full moon on the valley floor," Nogueira says. "My daughter loves doing that. There's so much to do here year-round, but winter is a magical time; it's just so pretty, and the mountain is so diverse and challenging. The fact that we don't have lift lines or crowds here means you can get a lot of time up there and really explore, get a good workout."
A self-described "laid-back skier," Nogueira says she seeks out the gentler runs. "I don't go into the bush too much," she says. "I don't do trees that much. I'm kind of conservative."
She likes Bushwacker, an easier black-diamond run off the Plunge Lift. It's steep, groomed every few days, and ideal for strong intermediates who want to push themselves.
"The new terrain is fantastic," Nogueira says, referring to the runs on Prospect Bowl. "I love Gold Hill, which has these stunning views, and it's wide-open and steep."
This year, there's actually more to love, because the resort added another four chutes on the double-black Gold Hill. With the addition of Chutes 2-5, that means Chutes 1 through 10 are now open to the public in an area controlled by two World War II 105mm howitzers that were installed last season. The howitzers fire explosives into areas prone to avalanches (which the Gold Hill section is). Howitzers have an extremely low misfire rate and can be shot in poor visibility, and have been key in Telluride's long-range plan for controlling steep areas with high snow buildup.
The new terrain drops 1,600 vertical feet into Prospect Basin (Chute 1 is right off Revelation Lift, while chutes 2-10 require hiking), and has a variety of features — including couloirs, rocks, faces and chutes — all above treeline.
"It's not easy skiing, but it's very straightforward," Nogueira says. "You can see everything from there."
Captivated by the breathtaking silence
James Kleinert would not describe himself as a conservative skier.
"I prefer to be out of bounds," says the former member of the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team. "I like the quietness, being out away from the resort. You can hear a pin drop. It's just beautiful."
Kleinert was captivated by Telluride decades ago as a competitive skier, but it wasn't until May 2007 when his other passions, documentary filmmaking and horses, brought him back to the area to work on a film, "Saving the American Wild Horse."
"I was living in Taos at that point, and there's this amazing mustang herd out at Disappointment Valley, so the film immediately tied into the Telluride community," Kleinert says. "So I was basically commuting from Taos to Telluride every other weekend from that point forward."
He moved to Telluride for good in February 2008. "That was quite a time to move here," he says. "That winter they had the biggest snowfall they've recorded since the mountain opened, and it was an unusual year because the snow bonded, so they weren't getting any big, nasty avalanches. We had these epic days of skiing."
And like so many Telluride residents that season, Kleinert was faced with a tough decision: sit at his computer all day or ski?
"Ha, well, I picked skiing," he says. "And I couldn't help but start collecting all this great footage."
Kleinert also reconnected with an old buddy from his competitive days, Scott Kennett, a freestyle skier who had moved to Telluride as well. That same winter, Kennett introduced Kleinert to a group of backcountry enthusiasts, and the result was "The Edge of Telluride," a film that premiered at the Mountainfilm Festival in May.
"The mountain resort itself is wonderful, but the backcountry here, now that's something else," Kleinert says. "I've skied many mountains around the world, after skiing the World Cup for almost 10 years — Japan, Europe, North America. But there's something about the San Juans, their jagged ruggedness. There's a wildness and a remoteness to it all. You really feel like you're in the mountains there."
He's now working on the next project for his Moving Cloud Productions, movingcloud.com — there's a follow-up to the wild horses film that focuses solely on Disappointment Valley. Meantime, he plans to be in the mountains as much as possible. "I really enjoy the cardio workout you get from putting on skins and climbing," he says.
Then he'll refuel at some of the exceptional dining Telluride has to offer.
"When you live here and are working, it's hard to get out much, and it gets expensive," he says. "But my favorite place is this little Mexican place called La Cocina. They make this amazing fresh homemade salsa, four or five flavors. If you get their chips and salsa and a beer, it's great. I think its $3.50. If you're on a budget, it's the best cheap meal you'll ever have."
La Cocina is one of Nogueira's favorites too. She also likes the pad Thai at Siam and the fresh seafood at Honga's Lotus Petal.
"It's funny that these are places that we all run into each other at," Nogueira says. "But that's what I like about Telluride. I like it that everyone knows everyone else, and that it feels safe and special.
"Sometimes I think, 'Ah, it's too small, too closed in and I have to get out of here' — but that's crazy. It's amazing to live here."