Free Box Gets a New Home

As winter came into Telluride this week, pulling its white hood over the canyon and sending flurries into the afternoon street, the sheltered nook of the newly opened Voodoo Affordable Housing Project is quiet and empty.  But not for long. Come Monday, November 4th, this alcove across from the Post Office will be the new location of Telluride's Free Box.

Here’s Free Box Manager Beck Boehm: “what you can expect from the new Free Box is a bigger shopping space; I wanted a space for a rack to hang hangers and nice clothes and jackets. One of my main thoughts was obviously a shelf for the glassware. That's something that needed to be there.”

This new box on Willow Street has cheerful bilingual text labeling the different bins. There is more space, but it's much the same as Telluride's current Free Box, which has been located by the intersection of North Pine Street and Colorado Ave for nearly 50 years, where it’s shadowed by the long awning of the Van Atta building, constructed in 1891.

That location, says Telluride Historical Museum Director, Kiernan Lannon has always been a hub: 

“Van Atta was a grocery dry-goods store,” he says, “so, it got a lot of traffic. Certainly during the mining heyday that was the busiest intersection [in Telluride].” 

By the seventies, the Van Atta store was long gone, replaced by a natural foods coop. It was in one of those years that Telliuride’s Free Box was born:

“Of course it started as just a box,” Lannon says. “I take it a woman was trying to get rid of some stuff and asked if she could leave it there. [The co-op] said ‘yes,’ and it wasn't too long before people started bringing stuff thinking: ‘hey, well, maybe I can get rid of my stuff too.”

It grew and grew, becoming the shabby 3x4 bin structure it is today. 

“That iteration came about in 1983 and they actually needed and got a HARC certificate of appropriateness for it,” says Lannon. “So it was considered a legit structure in the town.”

HARC is the Historic and Architectural Review Commission, signaling the town government's seal of approval for this community asset. 

Despite its magic, the box has always had its detractors, or at least skeptics, says Lannon: “somewhere in the late 70s is the first reference that the town was being urged to do something about the Free Box, the condition of the Free Box. People are complaining about it getting messy and blocking the sidewalk and people bringing stuff that shouldn't really be there and all that kind of stuff.”

The truth, explains Boehm, is that a Freebox takes work, management, and care, or else the trash piles up to obscure the treasure.

Who performed that work has shifted over the Freebox's history, falling on different volunteer groups and sometimes — such as in the mid 2010’s — going undone. 

“And so as we all know, it kind of fell into disrepair,” says Boehm, “and it was a huge trash dump for years. When COVID hit, the discussion came up, do we want to keep the Free Box? Is it something that we want in the town?”

A pandemic pause shuttered the box. Then, as the COVID germ scare subsided, residents called for a reopening. The town was ready to do it on its own terms, funding Boehm’s position to manage trash buildup at the box and incorporating a relocated Free Box, housed on town property, into the designs for its Voodoo Affordable Housing Project.

With the housing project complete this fall, it's time for the box to move. 

Twenty-four seven and three-sixty-five, the Free Box Bustles. On a recent afternoon, Nicola Kerr enthused about her finds, and she shows off an outfit picked from the Box on prior days of hunting. 

Are folks worried about the new location? Not particularly. Says Sarah Owens, browsing with Kerr: “a couple more blocks’ walk isn't gonna hurt anybody…It's gonna be good for all of us. I think it'll get more action [with its new location].”

What is it about the Free Box? Why has this community stayed so dedicated to its shabby curbside catchall?

“I do think the Freebox does speak to a very specific time in that period in the 1970s,” reflects Lannon. “As the town has progressed a little more into the resort feel that it has now, it's  hearkening back to a part of the culture that still seems to be there, even if it's a little more under the surface.”

While nostalgia certainly may be a factor, Boehm says it's not the only piece. 

Everyday, she says, she sees “how much people need that Free Box, not just because they want free stuff, but how they need it as a social space, as a way to clothe their kid, as a way to just feel connected to this community.”

Elizabeth Gick, who's lived in town for decades, was browsing on a recent afternoon, and she says it's true, the Free Box provides:

“I have found absolute treasures in here,” Gick exclaims.
Today, she brings a donation: “I'm dropping off a beautiful pair of pajama pants with patterns of elk. And it's just a little too tight around the waist for me, so I hope somebody else will have a good night's sleep in it!”

The Free Box officially opens at its new location across from the Post Office on South Willow Street on Monday, November 4th. And — supposedly — it will never close. Should you need to make a return, you can do so, no questions asked.

A Flute, Saxophone, and Bass Walk Into A Bar

By Julia Caulfield

Project Trio isn’t your typical chamber trio. Greg Patillo understands that.

“You don’t often see a flute, saxophone, base trio. What kind of a trio is that even?” he jokes.

Patillo is the flute component of Project Trio – a genre-bending ensemble, pushing the boundaries of chamber music to include jazz, hip-hop, and world music influences.

Patillo joins saxophonist Daniel Berkley, and double bassist Peter Seymour.

“There’s a little something for each person in the audience,” says Seymour. “If you don’t like the tune we’re playing, you might like the next one and the next one. We’re ever changing. Throughout a Project Trio concert you’ll here all these genres brought together.”

This week, Telluride Chamber Music is bringing Project Trio to the box canyon for a high energy performance at the Alibi.

Adding to an already untraditional trio format, Patillo brings a unique element to the group.

“I am known not only for traditional style of flute, but I’m also known for beatboxing on the flute,” Patillo explains. “Beatboxing is doing drum noises, percussive sounds at the same time as playing the flute so I’m able to get some interesting and funky sounds on the flute. Something not a lot of people have heard before.”

Throughout the concert, Seymour says there’s a little taste of everything.

“We play music of Mozart, Blue Rondo à la Turk. We play Charlie Parker, Hall of the Mountain King. We play the great Lennon and McCartney. We play a lot of original music. We have an homage to the great Django Reinhardt, the father of French Hot Jazz. We have an original salsa tune called ‘Bodega’ inspired by the streets of New York. It’s a whole smorgasbord,” he says.

Patillo says they want to think outside of the box and give the audience a proper show.

“We’re trying to be entertaining. We’re not looking to do things correct. We want to have everyone have a blast, come out to the show, see something new, have something different to talk about after the show,” he notes.

Project Trio will play at the Alibi on Thursday, October 24th at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at telluridechambermusic.org.

County Program Plants Seeds for a Sustainable Future

Autumn, for our region's agricultural producers, brings a time of harvest, scaling back, and returning livestock from summer pastures at high elevations to their grasslands close to home. Tony and Barclay Daryani have farmed land in Norwood.

At their kitchen table in late summer, Tony Daryani shares a map of the property — Indian Ridge Farm.

“In the fall, when the cows come down from the high country and they start grazing off all this pasture here,” he says, “on plot 2d, we've been running an — I won't call it an experiment — it’s a demonstration plot of intensive rotational grazing.”

The map of the Indian Ridge is chunked out into different plots, which are being farmed with different techniques. On 2d, 300 head of cattle intensely graze — and then rest — the field in cycles, mimicking a natural process which took place on the Great Plains before the era of US expansion and industrial agriculture.

Daryani continues: “you had millions of bison going across the Midwest and leaving their manure behind, letting it get incorporated with their hooves, and building up soil. I mean, the Midwest was an amazing breadbasket for a long time because of the grasslands and because of the bison.”

The Daryanis enrolled Indian Ridge in San Miguel County's Payment for Ecosystem Services program, which got started in 2021 to bring regenerative farming practices to our region with the goal of fighting climate change. It turns out certain practices that are good for soil health and a farm's productivity can also sequester carbon, save water and mitigate climate change.

Chris Hazen came on board to manage the PES program as it got started.

The county, he says, “works with a local rancher or landowner. And we identify lands where they're interested in implementing new practices. And by ‘practice’ I mean a different approach to grazing or, maybe some intensive seeding to introduce more diversity into their cover crops…and we can run the math on what kind of carbon benefit there could be from the work they're proposing. Then we can structure a contract through the county to make a payment for that particular practice.”

The benefit for the county is essentially a local carbon offset.

“Rather than going to the carbon market to buy carbon offsets for the county's zero carbon goals,” says Hazen, “they're actually paying landowners in San Miguel County for that carbon offset.”

The county based its model on a program run by the state of California, and it's not acting alone. Governments large and small across the country are looking to help agricultural producers move towards regenerative farming techniques.

Colorado recently received a $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to roll out its Regenerative Farming STAR program, or Saving Tomorrow's Agricultural Resources. Lexi Firth is a soil health researcher at Colorado State University who works with STAR producers in the state. Regenerative agriculture, she explains, comes back to working with the land to create healthier soils.

“And soil health is just the ability for your soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains life: first, whatever you're growing, but then in an agricultural ecosystem your economic and social health as well.”

That holistic mindset, explains Firth, ties certain farming practices to healthy soils, communities, and planet. While it may seem like big talk, the Daryanis show me out back to one of their fields. Tony points to the earth, running his hands through the long grass. “The fertility of the soil in here is second to none, and the density of the plant growth is second to none,” he says. “It’s incredible. The grass literally covers every square inch of this, of this pasture.”

For over a decade, Tony and Barclay rotated poultry across these few acres. In the heat of late summer, the soil now supports grass which is thick and green, pouring from the earth, when many fields on the mesa are parched, patchy.

For the Danyanis, joining the program was a no-brainer. They already had some of these practices in place.

“You know,” says Tony, “in our past, we did it to grow healthy food primarily. As it turns out, those same practices are found to be healthy for the entire climate picture.”

Adds Barclay: “one of the things we love to tell people that they may not be aware of is that grass sequesters carbon. It's not just rainforests and trees, but grass is a huge carbon ‘sequester-er’ as well.”

Their enthusiasm, however, remains the exception rather than the rule. The county budgets a hundred-thousand dollars annually for ecosystem payments. It has yet to find enough producers to disperse all those funds in any given year. But it's working to add more farmers. Hazen recalls a survey he circulated in the county's agricultural community.

“By and large, the responses to the survey talked about water supply and soil health as the two most critical issues the producer community was facing,” says Hazen. “So I think it's about providing more information and helping people make decisions for themselves. But thankfully, the science is there about soil health and these approaches that you can take.”

Firth says these programs cropping up come back to the changing needs of today's farmers. “I think we're at this very critical moment in history where we're realizing the problems with the current way our agricultural system is working,” she says, “and it's going to be really interesting to see how things kind of unfold in the next few years. We're at this peak point where our entire agricultural system is transforming and it's not going to look the same.”

The Daryanis, meanwhile, are wondering what the future of farming will look like right here on their land in Norwood.

“We want this place to stay a farm long after we're gone. We feel like growing food is an important part of a community and maintaining that agricultural lifestyle is important for our county too,” says Barclay.

On a changing landscape, the county's PES program carries forward that intention.

KOOK Ridgway takes to the Airwaves

Since 1975, KOTO has been licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to broadcast on 91.7 out of Telluride, Colorado. The original antenna was strapped to the roof of the Miners Union, and, at 10 watts, the signal barely reached Society Turn. 

This week, the station reached a milestone when it added its second transmitter, expanding its signal north over the Sneffels Range into Ouray County.

Nearly three years of planning came together over three days high on a ridge-line above Highway 550.

“It takes a while. It takes a lot of planning,” says longtime station manager Ben Kerr. “You have to apply for a permit with the FCC, and get permission.”

The idea of piping KOTO into Ouray actually goes back to the station’s founder.

“Jerry Green was the one who said: ‘you know, we should really expand and get over that direction,’” Kerr recalls. “You can't [broadcast this far] with the main transmitter; the mountains are in the way. So you've got to kind of work through the valleys and get around. Putting different translators and transmitters up so that you can service other communities.”

Translators carry the signal from Telluride west to Norwood, but jumping the Sneffels range required a full transmitter, which meant applying for a new license with the FCC and adding a second set of call letters: K-O-O-K.

The transmitter site induces vertigo. Regional TV and radio towers create a cliffside cluster accessed by a long mountain road. Ridgway lies in a haze to the north. To the south, the gridded streets of Ouray fill the canyon floor. This morning, engineers, station staff and climbers have assembled for the final install.

Axel Koch is a volunteer DJ at the station and a retired marine engineer. He researched radio technology in order to lend his hand to the project. Gesturing to the set of radio equipment around him, Koch explains: “we have two elements, [positioned] 98 and a half inches apart, which is three quarters of a wavelength for 90. 3, which is our frequency for this transmitting site!

“We have to be exact,” Koch says.

Also on the team is radio engineer Scott Henning, who has 30-years experience working as a broadcast technician in the state’s Southwest. What makes this project stand out?

“Well, it's in the mountains of Colorado,” says Henning, looking around at the dizzying site. “But, then again, they're all in the mountains of Colorado! Being non-profit, of course, makes it special, in my opinion, he adds. “I really like non-profit radio stations because they exist for the right reasons.”

The project involved pouring concrete pads and installing towers to hold the broadcast antennas and equipment in place.

Mason Osgood spoke with the station's Director, Cara Pallone, about the process.

____

Tuesday afternoon, Pallone was ending a long day at site, still without a broadcast.

“I left and I was headed down Gold Mountain and I didn't make it but maybe one minute before I got a phone call. So I stopped, slammed on my brakes and it was Claybrook [KOTO’s Assistant Station Manager]. And she was like: ‘turn on 90. 3 and tell me if you hear anything.’ And I turned it on and coming through the speakers was Yo La Tango with Moby Octopod!”

“And I thought, this can only be KOTO,” recalls Pallone.

Sure enough, it was the High School Radio Club coming through the airwaves. The many hours of hard work paid off just in time as an incoming rainstorm drove the rest of the KOTO crew out of the mountains above Ouray.

This project, Pallone says, started three years ago when Kerr alerted her to an FCC opening in Ridgeway. She says it aligned with the station’s mission: “and we have the perfect mission statement. We've never had to change it. I think what we need to do now is adapt and find ways to better fulfill it. So when I think of communities, I don't just think of Telluride, I think of the region, really. We have so many people who have moved to Norwood, to Ridgway, who are our friends, our neighbors. They work here, they're invested in Telluride.”

Pallone says the next steps will be slow, thoughtful and sustainable

____

For those dedicated to the station. The project was a no-brainer. As Koch says, “I love KOTO. I probably listened to it when I first came up to Telluride skiing in ‘78. I just love the radio station and it's because of the people. It's the voice of the valley.”

With the final install complete, that love of KOTO now becomes the love of KOOK as well, reflecting the voices of the region however, that region may be bound.

Ridgway Track Could Serve the Region

Behind the Ridgway Secondary School, students are finishing a PE class. The sun fills the afternoon with a pleasant heat; the earth is dry and baked. There’s a set of bleachers, an old scoreboard, and an expanse of patchy grass framed by a view of the San Juans rising to the south. 

It’s a field of sorts, but to call it a proper soccer pitch is a stretch, and the school’s athletic teams haven’t used it since 2019. 

Ridgway Athletic Director Shawnn Row says since he’s been in the position, “we’ve only played one game on the field before we realized it just wasn't a playable surface anymore. Since then we’ve had to ship all of our games and practices over to the Ridgway Athletic Park. And that’s a very crowded space because everyone is trying to use it.”

While using the town fields has been a temporary fix, the facility is a ten minute drive away and it’s got a packed schedule, as it’s shared with community leagues.

Voters passed a bond measure in 2021 which included funding to make improvements to the languishing athletic fields. Meanwhile a group of parents at the school, including Peter Hessler and Leslie Chang, were having dreams of their own. Their kids run track, and Hessler is the coach. But the team doesn't have an actual track to run on.

In the spring of 2023, Chang recalls, “we went to the school, and asked: ‘would it be possible to think about putting a track around the soccer field?’ And the administration said ‘actually we’re looking at different plans for what to do with our soccer that hasn’t been functional for the last five years: should we just do a quick fix or should we do something more substantive?’”

Chang continues, “so we all sat down and talked about it. And this is what came out of it: a plan for a new synthetic turf soccer field and an eight-lane track around it.”

School teams have not played on their home fields since 2019, when the boys soccer team won the state championship. Irrigation and surface issues have made them un-usable, and team currently practice on fields across town.

The idea was ambitious, but it stuck. Hessler’s team is not the only school track and field program in the area practicing without a proper facility: from Delta to Mancos, Hessler says:

“It’s sort of a strange situation where you’ve got a large area here which has no facility. So in the surrounding five counties, which is an area as big as Connecticut, there's no publicly accessible track.”

“Some of that is geography,” he adds. “In a town like Ouray or a town like Telluride, even if you have the money and the will there’s nowhere to put it in these mountain valleys. So Ridgway is one of these places where we do have the space, so it sort of made sense to put it here.”

This absence of a track has brought regional enthusiasm to the project.

“It’s not just a Ridgway asset,” Chang says. “It’s a Ridgway-Ouray-Silverton-Telluride- Norwood-West End asset, because these are all schools with track teams that don’t have a track. We went around and talked to Athletic Directors and Superintendents in a lot of these places and they’ve said: ‘we’d love to have this facility’”

As word spread, enthusiasm has moved beyond school programs and into the area’s rich running community. While the San Juans may be synonymous with rugged trails and mountain ultras, a track offers a different sort of opportunity.

Sarah Lavender Smith lives in Telluride and has been a runner of these mountains for decades.

“People might be thinking ‘Why do we need a track? We have this great bike path. We have miles of amazing trails,’” says Lavender. “And that’s all true, but there’s something so special about a track. Doing a track workout when you have a flat, measured surface to challenge yourself with faster intervals, that is so beneficial.”

“And the other thing about a track, it's a very low barrier to entry. Anyone can go to a track and try walking or running.”

Adds Chang, a track could serve elderly folks, community summer leagues, and local events.

“When you don't have the facility you don't really know what you’re missing. But once it's here, all sorts of people have ideas about how to use it. And this field and track and everything will be open to the community year round.”

Such an asset, however, comes at a cost. Estimates for an eight lane track with a turf soccer field in the center, jumping pits and all the rest come to just over 3 million dollars. Ridgway Superintendent Susan Lacy calls the bond measure which passed a few years ago.

“Originally a full track had never been part of that bond, but definitely track practice facilities and improvements to the field had been. So the School District has pledged $750,000 from that bond to the project.”

Private donations have raised another $750,000, bringing the project halfway to its target. The Telluride Foundation has come on as a project supporter, and potential grant money could help close the gap, but the full funding picture, and the facility’s fate, remain unclear.

What is clear, for track and field athletes at the Ridgway Secondary School — the necessity of such a facility. Jonah Hepp competes in hurdles at meets in Grand Junction and Delta. But when it comes to practicing, he uses a hallway at the school, setting hurdles up along a row of lockers.

“Numbers twenty-five and sixty-eight. Those are the lockers we have to set them up by.” Hepp continues: “doing any sort of track thing without an actual track is difficult. It’s just so inaccurate, and it only fits two or three hurdles.”

The dedication of the students, the region’s community, and the parents who initially proposed the project has brought the vision a long way.

“You often have people with good ideas,” says Lacy, “but it's rare to have volunteers with good ideas who are willing to do the work. And they’ve been an amazing team, working really hard.”

Those volunteers say the project is at a critical stage, as the remaining funds must be secured before the end of the year for the project to move forward in its entirety.

Visit cimarronathleticfield.com to learn more.

Norwood Teacher Named One of The Best

By Mason Osgood

Photo courtesy Norwood Public Schools

Rain clouds hovering over Norwood didn’t diminish the buzz of excitement inside the Norwood school. It’s Tuesday, September 17th, and a group of administrators and visitors gather to surprise second and third grade teacher Shelley Donnellon.

Emma Garrett Nelson is Chief Communications Officer with the Colorado Department of Education. For the past two weeks, she and her colleagues have been traveling around the State to announce the finalists of Colorado Teacher of the Year.

“We have this program called Teacher of the Year and we ask everybody in Colorado, we ask who are your favorite teachers, and we got one thousand nominations,” Garrett Nelson explains to students. “A thousand teachers in the entire state were nominated including your teacher, and out of those thousand we had ninety three teachers do an application process. It’s a very hard process, and oftentimes teachers don’t like to brag about their awesomeness and that can be kind of challenging for teachers to do. Out of those ninety three applicants we had seven finalists, and your teacher is one of those seven finalists”

It's a big deal. There are about 55,000 teachers throughout the state of Colorado, and as Garrett Nelson shares, Donnellon is one of the top seven. Garrett Nelson hands over a check for $1500 dollars for Donnellon to use as she likes, in addition, a $500 donation to Norwood schools on behalf of the Boettcher Foundation.

Gathered in Donnellon’s second and third grade classroom is the who’s who of Norwood. The Superintendent, Principal, School Board Members. The Norwood Town Clerk; even her husband, San Miguel Sheriff Deputy Michael Donnellon.

While the state is now recognizing Donnellon’s accomplishments in the classroom, for her students, it's no surprise. 

“She makes her teaching fun, she gets nice cool activities, fun and activities,” says one student.

“She lets us do fun activities, and she’s so nice and pretty and just makes us all happy,” chimes in another.

Donnellon and her extended family have been in Norwood for over four generations, and she's taught for eleven years. Garrett Nelson, is excited to be in the Norwood school district, and to meet Donnellon in person.

“We’re just really excited to be here, our teachers are absolutely phenomenal and extraordinary and especially in a District like this and when you have someone who is homegrown and who has made the choice to be here who just loves this district,” Garrett Nelson says, “she described herself as ‘Norwood through and through’ and I think thats something thats really really special about Shelley.”

Todd Bissell, Norwood’s newest superintendent of three months, already has high praise of Donnellon. 

“She has made so many contributions to the school over the years, I’ve only known her for about three months being new here but going into her classroom it's always engaging, students are on task, they’re having fun, smiles on their faces, and that's what we like to see,” Bissell says.

Donnellon’s giddy students gather around her for a group photo, as she holds her award and check for $1,500. The seven finalists will go through a second interview process, and classroom visits from the state of Colorado, before a final winner is announced in early October. 

But Donnellon says it’s incredible to make it this far. “I am shocked and honored, so I never in my wildest dreams thought that this was and option,” she says “I appreciate everyone, I couldn’t have done it myself, the kids here are great, the families here are great, the staff, the support, the town, I mean this is just really the best place”

As the celebrations draw to a close, staff goes back to work, and the students take their seats for the next lesson, standing at the front of the room is one of the top teachers in Colorado. 

Future of Insurance Access Uncertain as Region Addresses Wildfire Risk

This is the second in a two-part series on the Telluride region’s response to wildfire concerns, and a changing insurance marketplace. Listen to part one here.

Hilary Cooper lives in Telluride, just north of Main Street, in a compact home fronted by a big bay window. There’s a shady patch of synthetic turf out front, perched just above the street. She bought her house 1996, and has been here with her family since.

“And about two months ago now, I got a notice from Nationwide, my carrier, that my insurance was going to be cancelled due to wildfire risk,” Cooper says.

It’s not Cooper’s first difficulty with insurance; she also faced a canceled plan a couple years ago. “So it became pretty obvious at that time, a while ago, that carriers were starting to leave the area,” she says. “Since then, I've discovered that they're really trying to leave Colorado as quickly as possible and that a lot of wealthier homeowners are basically going to a self-insured approach. But what does that leave for the rest of us?”

Cooper is not alone in asking the question of how to maintain insurance in an era of increasing wildfire risk, especially for a homeowner with limited resources. A prior KOTO story profiled individual and community efforts to prepare for wildfire, from tree thinning in the ski ranches to roof replacements in Mountain Village. 

But the question of what a homeowner can do when an insurance plan is canceled remains. Community Development Director in the Town of Mountain Village Amy Ward says the Village has reached out to insurers, hoping to shape town building codes to the industry’s preferences, “and they’ve been unwilling to share that with us,” Ward says. 

But homeowners can still address the issue, and says Ward, “we do understand that after mitigation work, like replacing your roof or doing defensible space work on your home, you can actually go to your insurer and request a rate rebate.”

Mitigation techniques begin with those simple fixes: replacing a wooden roof with a metal one, trimming back bushes near a home. But as wildfire concern increases, mitigation is also evolving. Clifford Hansen runs the Telluride-based broker Latitude Insurance, which has offices across the West. 

“There are newer technologies coming into play,” Hansen says. “Outdoor wildfire sprinklers to sprinkle the lawn, sprinkle the house…Most of our clients here are with high net-worth carriers, and with that comes enrollment in a service called Wildfire Defense Services. And WDS for short, in the event of an approaching wildfire, has teams all over the place and they deploy them [to protect homes]. “

Even if a homeowner has all the resources to throw at mitigation, hiring a private fire-fighting team, and installing outdoor sprinklers, will insurers take note?

Aaron Johnson, a mitigation specialist with the West Region Wildfire Region Council, which consults on fire readiness across the Western Slope. When it comes to mitigation, he says, “there's nothing that's guaranteed to work. Providers have the final say whether or not it’s something they’re going to recognize. But we do hope it’s something they’ll consider moving forward.”

The roof on Cooper’s home? It’s not wood, it’s metal, and her front lawn is a mix of synthetic grass and hardscaping. 

“Even if we, you know, cut down the entire hillside between here and Lawson Hill,” Cooper says, “I'm not sure if that would have satisfied the insurance providers, because it's a much bigger problem. It's a global problem that little old Telluride is just a tiny pea in the sea of.”

Across town, in his office at the Telluride Fire Protection District’s Station 1, Chief John Bennett recognizes any one homeowner, or community, may be overshadowed as insurance providers are pulling out of entire states from California to Colorado. 

“It’s an unfortunate fact, and, I think all of these states are, at a legislative level, trying to find some solution to relieve that homeowner pain of either increased premiums, or quite frankly, cancellations of insurance policies. Unfortunately, it's not an overnight fix,” Bennett says. 

In Colorado, that legislative solution is called the FAIR Plan, or Fair Access to Insurance Requirements. State officials are currently preparing for its rollout. 

“It’s essentially an insurer of last resort,” explains Johnson. “So when people are dropped, they can turn to a state program. It's going to basically be a nonprofit program. The maximum coverage for individual parcels, I believe, is $750,000.” 

That maximum payout of $750,000 makes it ill-fit to our region’s real estate market, where even many deed-restricted properties fetch a higher value. For Cooper, the whole issue is just one more burden piled on to the affordability crisis affecting area residents. 

“I'm not sure where that leaves us,” she says. “It just leaves it all less affordable for us to be able to stay here in our beloved mountains where we thought we were going to grow old together as a family. But it's becoming more and more unlikely! And this is just yet another ‘notch.’”

This sense of uncertainty, even of defeat, amongst homeowners and some fire experts has not stopped those very communities and residents from trying to prepare. In the first part of this series, we heard from Caryn Borden, a resident of the Ski Ranches Neighborhood who performed mitigation work on her own property last year. She says, it’s going to take the whole community:

“You know, I can do my part, but if my neighbor doesn't do his part, it doesn't matter. It has to be a buy in from everybody. And not just Ski Ranches. So that's kind of….it's, it's hard.” she reflects. 

As the climate warms, and fire experts anticipate only increasing risk, landscapes, residents, and the insurance industry will have to find ways to adapt.

Concerns over Insurance Prompt Wildfire Mitigation Efforts

This is the first story in a two-part series on wildfire preparedness and insurance access in the Telluride region. You can listen to part two here.

It’s a clear morning in the Ski Ranches Neighborhood, just west of Mountain Village, and Caryn Borden is walking the winding streets of her neighborhood. All around are aspen, fir, Engelmann spruce. The underbrush is rich and layered with summer grasses and meadow rue.

Borden gestures to the roadsides:

“And so last year, the area that we're walking through now [contractors with West Region Wildfire Council] did all the trees that were a threat to the roadways. So if there was a fire, you could get out. So little by little, we're trying to check off priority projects,” Borden says. 

The West Region Wildfire Council. The Ridgway-based non-profit offers fire preparedness consultations for homeowners, communities, and landscape-scale projects across six counties on the Western Slope. 

Borden moved to the Ski Ranches four years ago and sits on the Board of the Homeowners Association. In that time, wildfire readiness has become a priority.

“We just redid our wildfire plan,” she says, “and we're trying to communicate to homeowners things they can do to prepare, you know, just make their homes safer. So if there is a fire, hopefully it's not spreading everywhere, if we're all doing our part.”

Borden is one of many residents across our region who are beginning to wrestle with the impact, or potential impact, of fire on their homes, their livelihoods and their communities. 

Wildfire, of course, has long been a concern across the West, but the issue is increasingly hitting close to home for property owners experiencing sudden changes in their insurance coverage. Area residents are beginning to report skyrocketing premiums and canceled plans. 

National publications, meanwhile, report some insurance companies are pulling out of entire zip codes, and states across the West. 

Clifford Hansen owns Latitude Insurance, a Telluride based broker with offices from Denver, to Aspen, to Big Sky. “They're all markets that are facing the same problems,” he says. “So in the beginning it was simpler. I remember telling people you should tell your clients not to put a wood roof on anything they build. And that was really [the beginning]. I could see the train coming down the tracks.”

That was five to six years ago, Hansen says. Now the issue has advanced. Take wood roofs. Certain structural elements, including a wood roof, act as fire risk amplifiers. Properties with those risk factors are becoming uninsurable. “We’re at a point where some companies will rate a wood roof if you replace it in the first year,” Hansen says, “but a lot of companies just won't write it.” 

As communities awaken to the intersecting issues of insurance and fire, they’re responding. And it begins with the roof. Take the Town of Mountain Village.

“At one point, the town required some areas to have Cedar shake roofs, so we have a huge amount in the town of Mountain Village. It's a very thin cedar shingle basically, and they're, they're layered on that roof and it's highly, highly combustible,” explains Village Community Development Director Amy Ward.

The cedar roof requirement was originally for aesthetic reasons in the idyllic cul-de-sacs of the Village. But as times have changed, so have priorities, and Ward says, a roof replacement “is the biggest thing that you can do to protect your home if you have a cedar shake roof. So you start there, you start with the roof. And then beyond that, you want to do defensible space work around your home if you’re adjacent to a forested area.”

The Town offers incentives to perform such work. It waives any building fees, up to $25,000, on projects which replace cedar shake roofs with a fire resistant material. Since beginning in 2017, the program has been highly successful, waiving some $650,000 in fees on over 150 replacements. The Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association began partnering on the program in 2019, and they hope to continue until all cedar roofs in the Village have been replaced. 

One major project was completed at The Mountain Lodge. The hotel was built around 2000 — opening under a cedar roof. Manager Steve Togni says it was increasingly hard to source insurance for the property. 

“So instead of playing that game and instead of continuing to fight through what was difficult from an insurance standpoint, we decided to move forward with a [metal] roof,” he says. 

Due to a lapse in funding in the Town’s Cedar Shake Program, Mountain Lodge ended up paying all the building fees associated with the replacement, but Togni maintains it was worth it nonetheless.   

Mountain Village also funds a Defensible Space Program which offers homeowners funding to re-work their landscaping to better prepare for fire. So far, those improvements have been a tougher sell.

“I think homeowners are reluctant because we all have an idea in our head about what a traditional landscape looks like and it often involves shrubbery and flowers right up to edge-of-home,” Ward says. But fire ready landscaping, she says, “doesn't have to be the worst case scenario when you do it right.”

Caryn Borden’s home in the Ski Ranches. Borden completed fire mitigation work on her property last summer, with a grant from the West Region Wildfire Council. While they removed a large number of coniferous trees, Borden says crews were able to leave the Aspen.

Buy-in from residents is slowly increasing, Ward reports. Back in the Ski Ranches, Borden shows me around her own home. She did mitigation work last year with consultants from West Region Wildfire, and the forest, she says, is thinner: 

“We had three awesome trees over here, but they took those out,” Borden says, gesturing around her property. “They took a ton out over here. They were really knowledgeable. They were awesome.”

Borden’s motivation was not only to protect her home in the event of wildfire, but to keep her biggest investment insured. 

“When we're making these decisions, we're just trying to be, again, proactive like other people. And I think [concern] is more in play than it was last year, because it would be hard if none of us can get insurance. It's like, ‘what do you do?’” she says. 

As wildfires continue to intensify across the West, will such small individual and community efforts be able to keep insurance options open? 

Part two of this series takes a deeper dive into the question, and the uncertain future of insurance in the region.

Welcoming Mason Osgood

By Julia Caulfield

A new voice is coming to the KOTO airwaves. KOTO’s newsroom with growing with Mason Osgood joining the team to help expand coverage in more rural parts of the region. KOTO’s Julia Caulfield sat down with Osgood to learn more.

New Base Jumping Documentary Lands in Telluride

Labor Day weekend in Telluride marks the annual Film Festival. This year, the lineup featured a new documentary from National Geographic profiling the base jumping community. 

Much of the film, Fly, was shot in Moab, Utah. 

Filmmakers Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz spoke with KOTO News about the extreme athletes pioneering the sport, and what it’s been like to debut the new work.

Schwarz: When we went out, people told us maybe we should meet Jimmy and Marta, these two legendary figures [in base-jumping] who are kind of the ‘mom-and-pop’ of the world. And they introduced us to the community. I think as we progressed in the film, we've zoomed in on the idea of love stories, [profiling] three couples because – inherently – the most basic thing you wanna do with your partner in life is protect them. But when you're on a journey like BASE jumpers, you also understand your partner like normal society doesn't in many ways, and you want to push them while keeping them safe. 

Clusiau: When you jump, from my understanding, and I've been in this world for a while, it's totally you. There's no one and nothing else. Everything is laser-focused and everything else falls away. It's only about you. You're the only person in the world at that moment.  And to have somebody else that you love standing on the cliff behind you, or waiting for you at the landing, or flying with you, it's like you're together but you're not. 

Schwarz: We initially actually met Jimmy in Norway and then we traveled to see them teach in Twin Falls, Idaho. And then we spent a lot of time in Moab with them. 

We've shown this film at different places and I've heard people walk out and say: ‘damn, maybe I should leave this job or leave the relationship I'm not happy with.’ So I don't think we tried to make a film that's niche only to an outdoor, base jumping or risk taking community. It's an equal push and pull in a way: to do something and follow your dreams, which we all kind of say we do and are educated to do. But then life happens and we take paths that are more mainstream. 

Clusiau: I don't imagine audience members that view this film are gonna pick up a skydive rig and go BASE jumping.Or a BASE jumping rig and go BASE jumping. But they may say, ‘you know what, am I really living the fullest life that I want to live?’

Schwarz: When we started filming, I would go up and shoot these guys jumping and just be amazed. And as I grew closer and became friends with them, I remember this ‘Jewish mom quality’ of being like, ‘are you sure you want to do this?’ I obviously had to shut it up and be an observer and let it go. And with time I started trusting them, but we also saw a lot of accidents.  So I think that question of what's worth it, and survival, and when to push and when to say ‘not today,’ it’s always present. 

Clusiau: You know, like what's the limit? Another question to think about is how far can humans go with flight? And celebrating it. And how far can humans go with their dreams? I don't know. I think that's an individual question for everybody.

Forest Service Polls Visitor Traffic

Every five years, forests managed by the US Forest Service take a look at user-ship levels and activity types on their trails, facilities, lands and so on. 

It’s part of the USFS’s National Visitor Use Monitoring Survey. This year, the Grand Mesa Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forest was due for its NVUM update. Running from October of last year through September of this year, folks hired by the forest have been tallying traffic and chatting with recreators to report back. 

On a recent sunny summer's day, we caught up with one such surveyor, Tara Malmstrum, at the intersection of the Jud Wiebe Trail and Tomboy Road and got to quiz her about what she's learned from a summer of talking with forest users. 

Malmstrum: I'm a teacher over in Ridgeway, so it's summer work for me. Of course, I want to do anything I can to help the natural environment — the forest in particular.  The Forest Service have me going up to Blue Lakes a lot, and that's a very high priority for them. Part of that will help inform when they do the permitting, which I think they're planning on doing in 2026. 

(Blue Lakes is a trail south of Ridgway, below Sneffels Peak. Due to an increase in traffic in recent years, the USFS is considering requiring day-use permits in the area.)

This is a pretty busy trail, Ice Lakes and other places…So I think they want to look at where they're putting their resources and how they manage those trails.  A lot of locals I think use the Jud Weibe, but I had a young man from Canada, a lot of people from Texas and Arizona getting out of the heat. A lot of people with second homes here who are traveling, hiking, walking up the trail. 

This is actually my second time in two months [monitoring here,] and the first time the Imogene Pass was closed. So it was pretty quiet. Now it's really busy. I mean, I've counted 205 people leaving the trail or the road since 8 o'clock, and I go until 2. There have been 35 vehicles. 

So, this is one of the busier trails that I've seen. Blue Lakes, hands down is busier. I was there the Saturday after 4th of July and I counted over 300 people and that was in a six-hour period. So you double that for the day. That's a lot of people on that trail. 

I also have been working with the San Juan Mountain Association to do some trail ambassador work with them. They have a permanent tent set up over at Blue Lakes. So that's another little arm that's helping the Forest Service, you know. And of course just the locals [do their part to educate visitors, saying:] ‘Hey, put your dog on a leash, or pick up your poop bag’ or whatever it is. 

I love this and I love the forest and I hope you know it helps in some small way! 

Monitoring efforts within the GMUG will wrap up at the end of September. In a statement, the Forest Service says the survey will help its managers ‘estimate the number of people who engage in recreation on forest land and give a picture of the specific activities they partake in.’

Well Dunn

By Julia Caulfield

Those who tune in regularly will have noticed a new voice on the airwaves. Eliza Dunn joined the KOTO News team in June as a summer intern reporting on everything from government meetings, to birdwatching.

But now a new school year beckons and she’s heading out on the next adventure. KOTO’s Julia Caulfield sat down with Dunn to hear how the summer has gone, and what’s coming up next. Dunn starts with her thoughts on the summer.

Single Use Plastic Asked ‘To-Go’

By Julia Caulfield

Frequent local restaurants and businesses in Telluride and you may notice something missing. Single use plastic.

“Mainly what’s changing is related to food service and things related to food service. But it’s not solely that,” says Darin Graber, Sustainability and Grant Administrator for the Town of Telluride. “it also applies to somethings you might not expect, toothpicks can’t be wrapped in single use plastic, or cotton swabs with plastic stems are prohibited under this ordinance.”

In 2022, Telluride Town Council passed an ordinance to ban single use plastic in the town, with the implementation date of July 1, 2024.

Under the ordinance, single use plastic containers are prohibited (such as Styrofoam, cups, bowls, plates), plastic straws and cutlery are a no go, same with condiments, and plastic stirrers or garnish spears. Single use plastic water bottles under a gallon are prohibited. In addition, customers at a restaurant or business must request cutlery or napkins, rather than getting them automatically.

There are exceptions for fire, EMS, and law enforcement if they need single use plastic in an emergency situation, or in the case of a town wide emergency or natural disaster. Single use plastic will also be allowed for medical use.

You may also still see single use plastic at the grocery store as prepackaged items that come from large distributers, or if it has to do with food safety.

“So obviously we’re going to have milk cartons, or a plastic bottle of milk. The things we need to change are the items that we’re serving over the counter. If I have a raw ingredient in my hand and I need to put it in something to give to a customer, that receptacle needs to be compostable,” notes Chris Jackman, Store Director at the Clark’s Market in Telluride.

Jackson says there have been a number of changes at the store since the ban went into effect, but he’s up for the task.

“It does seem a little daunting at the beginning especially when you start making a list of all the things that need to be changed over,” he says, “but there are a lot of suppliers that provide those items.”

The main challenge, Jackman says, is getting vendors to stock the items specific for Telluride.

“Because they service a larger community. They’re servicing Telluride, and Norwood, and Ridgway, and Montrose, and Grand Junction. So to have these niche items for Telluride can be difficult, but I haven’t talked to anyone who is not supportive of it,” he says.

Jackman adds with a higher demand on eco products he anticipates running into supply chain issues, with certain products being out of stock.

Despite shifts or any potential challenges for the Market, Jackman says he’s supportive of the ban.

“To have such a small community like Telluride be a role model for the rest of Colorado and the rest of the United States is a great move for us,” he muses.

Scott Keating is the part-owner of the Coffee Cowboy, a to-go coffee shop in Telluride (photo credit Julia Caulfield/KOTO)

But not everyone is fully sold.

“Our business is a to-go business, and we’ve been using compostable cups since we bought it in 2020,” says Scott Keating is part-owner of the Coffee Cowboy. “So for our to-go cup scene, nothing has changed.”

Keating’s not against compostable cups. As he said, the Coffee Cowboy has been using them since the beginning, but he’s skeptical of the benefit to the environment.

For the compostable cups to properly break down, it requires an industrial composting process, something the Telluride region is working towards, but doesn’t have readably available.

Some research has shown that compostable material still takes years and years to break down in a landfill, and as they do, they can emit the greenhouse gas methane.

“It’s great in theory, if we’re actually composting it,” Keating says “But to put all that energy in to something that’s actually worse for the environment, it doesn’t make sense. At the end of the day I feel like we’re greenwashing to make ourselves feel better.”

That’s not to say he’s against the ordinance, but he wants to see the conversation go further.

“This is a great first step. I’m not trying to sh*t on it,” Keating says, “I’m trying to be a realist of if we want to think of wide scale problems and think it through, let’s not do it 20%. Let’s really think about them.”

For Keating, it’s about a culture shift. To that point, Graber agrees.

“Trying to really push toward a different mindset of refuse, reuse, then think about recycling, then think about everything else,” says Graber. “Shifting people’s habits might seem like a big deal, but I think in a year or two it’ll be so normal, and we can push to a much more sustainable lifestyle than the consumption based lifestyle we have nationally.”

A national culture shift to zero waste may be a big goal, but Telluride is trying to do its part. One cup at a time.

The San Miguel Rodeo Saddles Up

By Eliza Dunn

Photo Eliza Dunn/KOTO

It’s a Saturday night in Norwood. The late summer sun is setting over the mountains, but in the San Miguel County Fairgrounds, excitement is rising. 

Over the loudspeaker, the announcer’s voice booms, “well, good evening rodeo fans, and welcome to night number two of the San Miguel Basin CPRA Rodeo.” 

The first event of the night is bareback riding. The gates open and a wild bucking horse charges out into the ring, kicking up dust and tossing the cowboy around like a ragdoll. The goal is to stay on the animal for eight seconds.

Next up are the roping events. Down by the grandstand, a few cowboys tie up their horses after their ride. 

Bryce Grant just finished the tie-down roping, a fast-paced event that requires both speed and precision from the cowboy. 

“It’s a single-cowboy event, where it’s just you and your horse and you’re tied on,” Grant explains. “So you have a calf and they get a head start. You go down rope, and then you get off and flank him and tie three legs.” 

As he rides into the ring, Grant says, he tries to block out everything around him: “I try to just focus on myself. I try to get myself really angry and really aggressive, because that’s something that I’ve really struggled with lately. So I just really focus on what I'm going to do right then and there. Get out good and just go do my job.”

Next up, the cowgirls take the ring. Breakaway roping is an all-female event that moves at lightning speed. In a matter of mere seconds, competitors attempt to chase down and rope a calf.

After her ride, Ashlin Spitzer explains that she does breakaway roping because “not only does it take horsepower, which is instrumental, but also the intelligence of the roper itself, and making sure that you make the right call at the right time. And you’re almost in sync with your horse. But it’s also just so beautiful to watch and to actually see someone rope sharp or the proper form. I think it’s one of the most beautiful things.” 

Photo Eliza Dunn/KOTO

Spitzer grew up riding horses, but didn’t start riding rodeo until recently. “I got into rodeo because it was…. COVID happened and it was time for change and to try something different and I had always been fascinated with rodeo and horses,” Spitzer remembers. “And so I decided to go to college and work for it and it’s paid off and it’s better than I could’ve ever dreamed.” 

Patting down her horse, Gopher, Spitzer says tonight wasn’t her best ride, but she’s okay with that. “Nonetheless, this is my hometown rodeo, and I absolutely love it here and I’m happy when my friends get to come out and see,” she says. “And if I miss, if I don’t, there’s always something I can take away from it. Of course winning’s great, but you can always learn something.”

Photo Eliza Dunn/KOTO

As the sun disappears behind the mesa, the competition rides on. One after another, riders take the ring, going up against bucking bulls and wild steers. It’s a dangerous sport, and sometimes competitors are only a few inches away from a stray hoof or horn. Still, Grant says, when he rides out of the box, he’s not afraid. 

“No, I enjoy it too much to be scared,” he says. “And then when you’re riding good animals who are your best friend, it makes it so much more worth it.”

That connection with your horse, Spitzer agrees, is key: “You know, your horse can feel every single feeling you feel. So they can feel when a little fly flies onto their back, they’re going to feel all the tension you hold. To me, as a rider, I think it’s important to be as calm and collected as possible so he can go out and do his job and I can do mine.”

As the last events draw to a close, the ring empties out and the animals get loaded up for the night. A band starts up and competitors and spectators alike gather under the stars, to celebrate another summer of rodeo in Norwood. 

Love and Loss with “Love Letters to Vincent”

By Julia Caulfield

“Love Letters to Vincent” is a poetic, musical, multi-media journey into love and loss. A creation from local poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and pianist, composer, and historian Kayleen Asbo, the performance leads the audience through the work and life of artist Vincent Van Gogh. Wahtola Trommer and Asbo spoke with KOTO’s Julia Caulfield about the performance.

That was Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Kayleen Asbo speaking about their upcoming performance of “Love Letters to Vincent”. The performance will take place at the Palm Theatre on Saturday, July 27th at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at telluridepalm.com.

Shakespeare in the Park Brings Cross-Dressing Revelry

By Eliza Dunn

Shakespeare in the Park runs on Town Park Stage (photo courtesy of Telluride Theatre)

It’s a warm July evening in Town Park. The skate park is full, softball is in full swing, and kids are kicking a soccer ball around on the grass.

But on the Town Park stage, a storm is brewing, and a ship is going under.

It’s Telluride Theatre’s annual production of Shakespeare in the Park. For the past eight weeks, the cast has been hard at work, memorizing lines and bringing Shakespeare’s words to life. 

This summer’s play is an adaptation of Twelfth Night. As is the movie She’s the Man, if you’ve seen it.

Director Jim Cairl’s take on the story is a balancing act.

“I think Twelfth Night itself is a play that is a tightrope walk between this wonderful romantic comedy and this kind of silly, vulgar clown show,” he says, “We're saying it’s kind of like When Harry Met Sally meets Dumb and Dumber.”

This version of Twelfth Night takes Illyria, the mythical setting of the play, and reimagines it as the quintessential American tradition: summer camp. Cast members have enjoyed transplanting Shakespeare into this new setting.

Ursula Ostrander plays Olivia.

“I think that the summer camp twist really lends itself to the lightness of the play, the fun,” Ostrander says. “Already it is a play that is full of hijinks and lots of silliness and it just heightens it.”

“The summer camp setting is fun,” Cairl agrees. “I think that, you look at things like Meatball, Wet Hot American Summer, there is this almost built in version of Illyria where you have rival summer camps or you have the romantic comedy subplot. I think that we already have his trope built into our own American movie sensibilities, that it made sense to try and reinvent Shakespeare through that lens.”

Photo courtesy of Telluride Theatre/Clarke Dyer Photography

Sasha Cuccinello, Telluride Theater Artistic Director and, in this play, Lady Tobi Belch, says that performing in the physical setting of Town Park makes the production even more special.

“We get to play on the most beautiful setting in the world—we’re on Town Park stage, looking out on the beauty of Telluride. And because we set it at a summer camp, the audience is facing the beauty of Telluride, so you know, every night we have something different—we have a good sunset, a rainstorm, a lightning storm, whatever it is, you just never know,” she says.

Against the backdrop of Telluride’s rocky canyon walls, Shakespeare’s words take on new meanings.

“Viola has a speech that she says to Olivia when they first meet. And there’s a moment where she says ‘halloo your name to the reverberate hills,’ and it’s really fun to get to say that literally yelling out to the reverberate hills in this Box Canyon,” says Julia Caulfield, playing Viola in the production.

She says that with opening day quickly approaching, there’s excitement in the air. “And then think there always gets to be a point where you’re like, oh we’re ready. We need an audience, we need other people to be in the space, people to witness to level up. And I feel like we’re getting there, and that’s always a really exciting thing.”

“Shakespeare… it comes alive when you're in front of an audience, because you get the audience’s reactions,” Ostrander echoes. “There are things that you just don’t—you hope they’ll play well, but you don’t know until you get in front of an audience, and also the audience gives you so much energy.”

As the cast rehearses, they joke around with each other. Cuccinello says the camaraderie among actors is a big piece of what sets this theater company apart. “We have a great crew of locals, I mean that’s what makes Telluride Theater special, is like, we are a local theater doing it for our community.”

Cairl, who is a visiting director at Telluride Theater, agrees. “Well, I’m from New York, so the first week was spent learning how to breathe. But I came into the company, I’ve never worked with Telluride Theater before, and everybody was so welcoming, and so open, and so willing to play, that it made my job much easier.”

The cast is only a few rehearsals away from seeing all their hard work up on stage, facing the reverberate hills.

“I’m feeling great! Why should I be worried? Should I be worried?” Cairl jokes. “No, I feel really good. You know, knock on all of the wood, but it’s going very well.”

Opening night for Shakespeare in the Park is this Saturday, July 20th, and it will run through the 28th. If you haven’t already bought your ticket, you can do so at telluridetheater.org. 

Bird Song on the San Miguel

By Eliza Dunn

It’s a little bit before 9am. The morning is still cool, and Telluride is just waking up. But the birds have been awake for hours. I’m at the Post Office near Town Park. It’s quiet —there are a couple people out walking their dogs along the River Trail. And if you listen closely, you can already hear some birds.

A small crowd is gathering on the sidewalk. Most people have binoculars hanging around their necks. At the center of it all is Katie Triest, professional bird nerd (according to her business card) and local field guide. “I own my own birding company,” she explains. “It’s called the Birding Company, the Birding Co., and I take people on guided bird trips.”

Triest says her passion for birding began with a clock. “My college roommate took an ornithology class and as a joke, I got her a clock of all the bird calls,” she says. “And the redwing blackbird really stuck out to me, and so I learned the redwing blackbird and it became an eye spy game for me. And so I just literally started becoming obsessed with what’s around me, to identify it.”

Today, Triest is running a trip with the Wilkinson Public Library. It’s a group of about ten or twelve—not ideal for birding, but we squeeze onto the River Trail, careful not to disturb what’s living in the green brush. Triest points out a bird hovering above: “Ooh—so there’s a broad-tailed hummingbird! On that willow. They’re very fast, but they will perch, which is fun, because a lot of the time you don’t see that.”

Triest scans the sky. When she points out a bird, everyone’s binoculars fly up to their eyes. “So that thing you’re hearing is a white crowned sparrow,” she says. “And we’ll see those too. It’s got a really cool white and black cap.”

As we walk, Triest explains what she’s looking—and listening—for: “I’m listening to anything I hear, just bird sounds all around me. And I’m looking for movement. Because that’s how I’ll find something, you know. Like if I’m just staring at a little area, I’m just waiting for a bird to move so I can track it. And once you hear it, you can’t unhear it. That’s all I hear. I’m so distracted in conversations when people try to talk to me, I’m just like oh—oh so there’s some Canada geese…”

Once you know where to look, there are birds everywhere. Standing on the riverbank, some first time birdwatchers list what they’ve seen today. “We saw a yellow warbler,” one woman says, “and a hummingbird.” “A couple of them!” another woman adds. “Yeah, broad-tailed hummingbirds. And then there was something else that she said was nesting…” Her friend jumps back in, “I forgot… That wasn’t a sparrow….” The other woman shakes her head, “No, but we did see a sparrow and we saw a robin.”

There are also American dippers and Brewer’s blackbirds and hummingbirds and song sparrows, all right along the River Trail. Walking a familiar route, like this one, is one of Triest’s favorite parts of birding, because “it gives people the opportunity to learn the birds that they’re going to be walking with day in and day out. It’s a great way to get to know your neighborhood.”

“What I love about birding,” she continues, “is that it’s so good meditatively, because you can’t concentrate on anything else. So, it helps your brain slow down and stop if you’re anxious or worried about something. When you’re concentrating on finding stuff and looking so intently, that all goes away.” 

Focusing on your surroundings, Triest says, brings you right into the present moment along with the geese and the sparrows. It requires patience, and careful attention to the world around you. 

Another birdwatcher on the walk agrees—even in the most familiar places, paying close attention allows you to notice things you’ve never seen before. Pointing out a broad-tailed hummingbird, he says that “it all depends on the angle of the sun to the bird. Because they can look very plain, very plain, and then they can look that gorgeous.” 

Triest’s advice to aspiring birders is simple: “just get out there, get outside. Get a field guide. But really when you’re in the field the best thing you can do is really focus on the subject without trying to find what it is. Write it down. Notice—is there an eye ring, are there wing bars, where is the color on the bird, what kind of sound is it making, what habitat is it in?”

Oh, and Triest’s favorite bird? “My favorite bird is the pigeon,” she admits, “and I’ll get a lot of flack for that.” I ask her why, and she explains, “they’re really incredible parents. They’re resilient, which I love. I love a good resilient bird. They’re adaptable. And I think they look pretty badass, you know? And they’ve got so many color morphs, which is evolutionarily speaking very cool. They’re just rad animals.”

Triest says not to worry—there are no pigeons in Telluride, so she can’t take you on a pigeon-watching trip. But there are warblers and mallards and redwing blackbirds and all kinds of birds sharing our backyard here in the Box Canyon. So next time you step outside, take a look—or just listen.

Stories of adventure, now and then

Kevin Fedarko and Hampton Sides have established themselves as estimable writers of the American scene, with work attending to landscape and history, and humanity's mark upon them. 

This year, Sides released The Wide, Wide Sea, which chronicles the final journey of Captain James Cook during the Age of Exploration. And Fedarko has released A Walk in the Park, a testimony of his own journey, hiking — not rafting — the entire length of the Grand Canyon. 

Their respective book tours brought their paths to cross in Telluride, CO, and the old friends stopped by the KOTO station to reflect on their latest work. They begin by recalling their early days as editors at Outside Magazine.

Sides: Both of us — Kevin and I — got an education as editors at Outside working with some of the best writers in the country. Well, what I think were some of the best writers in the country, writing about themes and subjects that we cared about: land use and environmentalism and cultures far away. I think our education as editors there, in a pretty direct way, led to some of the subject matter that we've pursued in our books.

That's what I do and what I've done with this most recent book which is about the final journey of Captain James Cook, one of the greatest explorers of all time. It's like an Outside Magazine story set in the past 250 years ago. What do you think, Kev?

Fedarko: Yes — and I know in my case, Outside had a much earlier influence on me as well in terms of just shaping how I thought about the natural world. I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, amid a ruined industrialized landscape.

And one of the windows that I was given as a young boy into the possibility of a wider world, a world where landscapes had not been marred and harmed and ruined was in the pages of Outside Magazine. 

KOTO: So Hampton, as you mentioned your latest book follows the last journey of Captain Cook. Do you feel you were able to get into Captain Cook's head?  

Sides: Well, it's a good question.The answer is yes and no. I did get to know certain parts of his personality. He, however, lived in an age when sea captains were not very emotionally expressive. He kept a journal, a very, very lengthy one, but the entries were often mundane observations about the depth of the water, the barometric pressure, the currents.

So you don't get a lot of the emotional stuff. And maybe that's just who he was. And in fact, what he was primarily was a mapmaker.

KOTO: So Kevin, the character in your book, quite differently, is you yourself. Did you have to dramatize yourself to make it a good read? 

Sides: Yeah, because this is memoir; in some part Kevin's book is a memoir. You are a major character in your own story and that, this is the first time you've ever really done a lot of that, isn't it?

Fedarko: I mean, that's completely true. I've written magazine stories in first person, but this is the very first time I've written a book in which I'm a major character. In fact, I should say, I took the opposite approach that Captain Cook took in his journals: I laid everything out. I felt that an important aspect of this story was to reveal the challenges, the incompetency, the bumblings of me as I moved through the canyon. 

I felt there was a kind of emotional and psychological topography that ran parallel to the topography of the Canyon itself: the highs and lows that you experience.

If you move into a place where you're not adequately prepared as I was not — nor was Pete McBride, the photographer and filmmaker who went with me — we did not engage in enough preparation. We were guilty of too much hubris and arrogance and assuming that we knew too much, and were going to be just fine. The struggles that we encountered in this incredibly brutal and harsh reality of the canyon — those really form the shape of the narrative itself. 

KOTO: You mentioned Pete McBride. He's there the whole time throughout this ill-fated track on the Grand Canyon. How does that relationship and that friendship fit into this book, this journey?

Fedarko: I mean, this is a story about a massive landscape and an incredibly famous National Park. But it’s also a story of friendship. This was a year, more than a year, moving through the Canyon. 750 miles into and out of the tributaries, up and down the layers of rock, over the course of 75 days arrayed along each 8 separate back-to-back expeditions, each of which was separated by a period of time in which we came out of the canyon to rest and re-provision.

But the arc of the journey itself was longer,  and the challenges were deeper, and I would argue,  because of all of that the rewards  were greater as well. Including the rewards of friendship. [We were] moving through challenges: arguing, fighting, and deciding ultimately to continue to be friends and then celebrating that fact. 

Sides: They're like an old married couple, Kevin and Pete McBride. They argue about everything, but they still friends. So that's a good, a good outcome.

KOTO: Alright, so two authors, two new books. You two are crossing paths in Telluride on your respective book tours and have taken the opportunity to do a combined book talk. What can you tell us about this event and this collaboration?

Sides: It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. But I think there's so many overlapping themes in our two books that we'll have a heck of a lot to talk about. It'll be a great conversation. And this is a great place to do that kind of conversation because Telluride is a place where a lot of adventurous souls hang their hats. So, it'll be fun. 

For a Second Time, Monument Effort Brings a Senator to West End

Under heavy heat in the desert, and a low gray sky, folks from across the Western Slope are packing into the gymnasium at the West End Public School in Nucla, Colorado.

They’re here to discuss a proposal for a Dolores Canyons National Monument, which could protect a huge swath of canyon country along the river. 

Conservation groups have called for protections along the river for decades, but the idea for a national monument, which can be created through executive action by the sitting president, came about over the last year or so.

Josh Munson came up from Cortez, CO. He’s President of the Dolores River Boating Advocates and has been involved in advocating for the monument. Of the Dolores, Munson says, “I've spent over 20 years exploring it, and it’s one of the most incredible places in the United States. The river rafting community compares it to the Grand Canyon or to the main fork of the Salmon in Idaho. And if those places deserve extra federal protection, the Mighty Dolores absolutely does as well.”

The monument effort has gained traction not only here in Southwest Colorado but across the state and even country. Communities along the river, however, in the West End of San Miguel and Montrose Counties have consistently and vocally opposed the effort. Many feel, in the words of Brenda Littlejohn of Nucla, that the effort represents “the taking of our land.  She continues, “This is mining history. I’m fourth generation. And [the land is our livelihood] here. They've taken away our coal mines. They've taken away Uravan from us. They've taken away everything.” 

It’s true, the federal government has a dubious track record in the area which has been battered by economic change. Today’s gathering  has been organized by US Senator Michael Bennet. A listening session in Naturita earlier this spring was attended by Senator John Hickenlooper. The crowd at that event was quite homogenous, with nearly all speakers voicing opposition to protections. 

Munson hopes for a more balanced conversation today, saying “I'm glad that Senator Bennett has taken the opportunity to encourage both sides to come and speak. There are legitimate viewpoints on both sides of the issue, and I think it's important that Bennet hears directly from people.”

The two sides are clear. Folding chairs in the gymnasium are split by a wide central aisle. With few exceptions attendees on one half carry black and orange signs vowing to ‘Halt the Dolores Monument.’ Across the aisle a sea of blue t-shirts read ‘Protect the Dolores.’ 

Can the two groups speak across the divide? It seems quite possible. Doylene Garvey, a community leader in the Nucla says a monument would bring traffic, development, and regulation to their quiet home. But she hopes for a conversation, asking “let us find a way for common ground.”

“America,” she continues, “the land of the free, is what I want for my grandchildren. Where they can enjoy this land. And I hope that you want the same for your children and grandchildren someday too.” 

Aimee Tooker, also of Nucla, has been a leader in the Halt the Dolores Campaign. She recounts how, when the state of Colorado closed the coal plant in Nucla in 2019, it promised the West End it could chart its own future. Tooker doesn’t say she’s opposed to protections. Rather, she wants them to be drafted here, in the West End.

“If you, Senator Bennet, and Senator Hickenlooper truly want to honor the commitment that the state of Colorado has made to this community, and you want to honor the principle of locally-led conservation that President Biden has laid out in the American Beautiful Initiative, then let us write the plan, and let us design the map.”

Discussion lasts for nearly two hours, with Moderator John Reams drawing names from a plastic box and inviting the next speaker to stand. Bennet works the room throughout the event, note-taking, cracking jokes, and encouraging balance between the room’s left, and it's right. 
Speaking after the event, he says the tenor, and conversation, in this tiny town’s school gymnasium was special. “To be honest,” Bennet says, “I wish the whole country could’ve seen the conversation that took place here tonight because I think people showed up in a very constructive way.” 

Bennet declined to say whether he would take an official stance on the monument, or what that  stance might be. But the senator has long been a champion of public lands in the state, and he says he sees a path forward. 

“I am coming away from this feeling like we can make progress, and make progress that the majority of people can support.”

That progress will take more conversation. But the hour is now 5 pm on a Sunday, and it’s time to return to the tasks of daily life, as the crowd filters out into the thick dessert air and disperses into the evening.

Dolores Conservation Effort Sparks Contention, and Conversation

The Dolores River Canyon runs deep through Southwest Colorado. Carved by the river north of the McPhee Dam, it holds sacred sites of the Ute tribe, joins with the San Miguel below the Hanging Flume in the Colorado Mineral Belt, and travels north below soaring red rock mesas on to Gateway.

Scott Braden, Director of the Colorado Wildlands Project, says “it’s an area that Coloradans have worked tirelessly for over fifty years to try to conserve.”

Over the last decade — longer, even — interested parties have come together to hash out and propose a national conservation area, says Braden. “And that process is what led to the NCA legislation introduced by Senator Bennett and Senator Hickenlooper for the Southern portion of this reach.”

An NCA requires passage by Congress. Despite grassroots support from a broad coalition in Southwest Colorado, Congress hasn’t acted on the Dolores Proposal. Meanwhile, Braden says, the NCA effort and its protections don’t cover the entire river. 

“Unfortunately in Mesa and Montrose Counties, [the NCA process] has failed, has broken down,” he says. As such, “there are currently no protections pending for those lands.”

About a year and half ago, a consortium of conservation groups known as the Protect the Dolores Coalition decided they should pursue further efforts, “and so,” says Braden, “we started to put together a proposal for a national monument as a complement to a national conservation area.” 

A monument works differently from an NCA: it doesn’t require passage by Congress. Instead it is signed into existence by the President’s pen. There are over 130 national monuments across the country, and they are quite diverse: some set up as major recreation and tourist attractions, others are secluded and little known. But, says Mason Osgood, Director of the Telluride-based conservation group Sheep Mountain Alliance, in general “national monuments are really great because they bring the management of the landscape under one office.”

Advocates claim that creating a single, protected area from an alphabet soup of federal lands will allow for more intentional planning when it comes to future recreation, development, and mining decisions. 

In their efforts to attract President Biden’s attention, the Dolores Coalition has circulated a petition, garnering over a hundred thousand signatures from folks across Colorado and the country. Braden says much of that support begins on the local level:

“We have hundreds of signatures in support from Mesa County Residents. We have dozens and dozens of Mesa County businesses and organizations in support of a Dolores River National Monument. “

And, their movement has traction. This spring, former Grand Junction City Mayor and current Councilmember Anna Stout delivered the petition to Washington DC to attract the attention of lawmakers; it worked. In late April US Senator John Hickenlooper visited the region to learn more about the proposal. 

But claims of grassroots local support hardly reflect the reality. In the remote towns along the banks of the Dolores, T-Shirts and yard signs vowing to “Halt the Dolores Monument" are ubiquitous. 

Aimee Tooker, is a business owner and community organizer in Nucla, CO. Speaking outside her bed & breakfast on Main Street, Tooker says conservation groups turned to the National Monument after the breakdown of the NCA process. Those groups are trying to bypass local input, she says. 

“They didn't wanna talk to the stakeholders anymore. They didn't get what they want, they didn't get their way [with the NCA]. And so this is one way to do it is, [by saying] ‘we'll just go around everybody and all the stakeholders and all the ag users and the ranchers and the miners and just do it this way.’”

Tooker claims, “99% of people in this community are against the National Monument.”

It’s true, at forums and public meetings, opposition from West End residents has been nearly unanimous. But there are those who see opportunity in the effort. Natalie Binder owns CampV, a hotel and hipcamp refurbished from the Main Street of the old Vanadium mining town. 

“As a business that is directly related to the recreation we of course stand to benefit,” says Binder. But she also recognizes the West End community has been through tremendous change and struggle in recent decades, often due to economic forces out of its control. 

“With the loss of the Uranium Mine in the eighties, and then the loss of the coal-fired power plant, think about it: you lose, approximately, 70 percent of your tax base. That's a big change and a big transition for a community to go through,” Binder says. “It's hard for other groups who aren't living that reality, or aren't in this community on a daily basis, to really understand how the loss of those industries have really impacted a lot of families and a lot of community members here.”

So far, conservation groups and those opposing a monument have struggled to bridge that divide. Things have often been contentious.  

Main Street in Naturita, CO.

“My community is pretty emotional about not having any say in this, what’s being done to us,” says Tooker. “I'm just about sick to death of these groups coming in and, and trying to slam our faces into the dirt.”

The Coalition says even while it hopes to preserve some 400,000 acres inside a Dolores Monument, its proposal will respect area ranching and mining rights. Additionally, Osgood says, nothing is settled.  

“It’s really early in the process,” he says, “and so these conversations are just beginning. I continually try to foster a place where we can find common ground in whatever that may be.”
Outside Nucla, the Dolores reaches its confluence with the San Miguel River before heading north to the Utah state line. It is calm, it’s waters wide and flat, moving slowly through deep canyon walls. It is early summer in the desert, and the growth is bright green along the river’s banks.  

While the fate of a Monument may lie in Washington with the decision of President Biden’s pen, the conversations discussing the future of this community and its landscape continue to play out here, along the river's course.