tribute
By Julia Caulfield
Stu Fraser
Stu Fraser was an integral member of the Telluride community. He served on Town Council and later as Telluride mayor. He was an advocate for protecting the Valley Floor as open space. He was a mediator, bringing at times, opposing sides together. Stu Fraser passed away on June 20th following health complications. He was 78 years old. KOTO’s Julia Caulfield shares this tribute.
By Julia Caulfield
Bill Kees
William “Bill” Kees was passionate. He was driven, a mentor, bold. A positive life force. Kees was big timber.
“Unfortunately the big timber falls, and Bill was big timber. He cast a big shadow wherever he was in a positive way,” says Kees’ friend Jerry Roberts, “you know, we’re going to miss that. Bill was just fun loving, great guy that loved his family, and loved his extended family just as much.”
Bill Kees passed away holding his wife’s hand, on November 9th after a fight with cancer. He was 79 years old.
Kees was born on December 22, 1941 in Los Angeles, California. He spent his childhood in Southern California, but after a winter bussing tables and bartending in Aspen, he quickly fell in love with the mountains.
Kees met the (non-geological) love of his life, Susan, and they soon packed up their lives in a van – and along with Susan’s two children, headed East in 1972.
On the way to Aspen, Kees and Susan stopped in Telluride, and realized this was the place to be.
It was in Telluride, Kees quickly became an integral member of the community – including co-founding the Mountainfilm Festival in 1979.
Jerry Roberts met Kees in those early years.
“Bill and I were like brothers. We loved each other and we hated each other,” Roberts remembers, “but it was mostly good. We’d fight and then we’d kiss and make up and have a good time.”
A lot of that “good time” was spent skiing.
“He and I used to go out when it was less than beautiful and spend a lot of time skiing powder, and Bill was just one of the most enthusiastic people I knew. The worse the weather the was, the happier he was, it was almost manic. He was just hooting and hollering and saying ‘God, isn’t this great. Do we deserve it this good?’ There wasn’t a bad day for Bill,” Roberts says, “He was a man of adventure, whether it was walking down the street in Telluride, or on his couch watching a football game and drinking a beer with a buddy, or out in the mountains, or the deserts, or the rivers, he was probably the most enthusiastic person I knew.”
His love and passion for the outdoors was central to many who knew him.
Josh Borof says, “Bill was the grandfather of Ophir climbing.”
Borof met Kees climbing.
“When I started climbing with him he was in his 50s. I think the last route we did together he was 62 or 63. His shoulders were starting to fail him, but man he sure did, still, he would get on lead and he was so solid. So impressive to watch,” says Borof.
For Tor Anderson, the name Bill Kees proceeded the man.
“Bill Kees’ name was on so many first assents on the Ophir Wall, and a few other places around, that of course I knew his name before I knew who he was,” says Anderson.
Anderson would go on to spend more hiking days with Kees than climbing, but he always looked up to him as a mentor for climbing and adventuring, “and also for how to be respectful, when I first moved to town or first started getting to know him, of the old school ethic and old school mindset – which he certainly embodied – which was ‘go for big adventure’ and in terms of climbing that meant you didn’t come from the top and come down, to inspect what you were going to go up. You went from the bottom and up and took it as it came,” remembers Anderson.
While Kees was an excellent climber, and avid outdoorsman, he also loved bringing people into his sunlight.
Borof says “when we started climbing together I was 24. I was a fraction as good a rock climber as he was. But I was into it, I was trying hard, and he really did want to include all of us youngsters in the Ophir Wall and what was going on out there.”
But that love didn’t end at the Ophir Wall. It extended into his whole life.
“He had a lot of love, and if you were his friend, he treated you like gold,” says Kees’ friend, Judy Kohin, “He was a true lover, a lover of his family, his friends, and he loved life.”
That love was apparent towards his friends, children, and grandchildren, but Kohin notes it stood out in the way he adored his wife, Susan.
“We all worshiped their relationship, and all the struggles they went through, and how they persevered,” Kohin says, “they really showed us what it means to be in a relationship in this modern world, and to be really committed, and to share your love with someone through your whole life.
Kees’ joy and passion for life went everywhere he did.
“Bill had the biggest smile of just about anybody I knew, and his life was great. You could hear him across town,” says Roberts, “You knew Bill Kees was around by his laugh. He was always laughing about something.”
For those who knew him, finding that exuberance in the wilderness is the best way to remember him.
“You climb his routes. The best way to know Bill and what kind of rock climber he was. It’s all right there on the Wall. Go do his climbs, and you get a very good sense of what he was about, and just how sure of himself he was as a person and a climber. It’s all right there in his rock climbs,” says Borof.
Kohin adds “he wanted people to go outside and feel what it feels like to be outside, and to be in the wilderness, and just spend your life enjoying the mountains.”
Kees is survived by his wife, Susan, his children Scott, Blake, and Lorraine, and his grandchildren Mira, Alex, Zach, Marius, Cricket, and Ozzy.
There will be a celebration of life for Bill Kees on Saturday, November 20th at 2 p.m. at the Transfer Warehouse in Telluride.
By Julia Caulfield
William “Senior” Mahoney
On a list of people who truly embody the Telluride spirt, one name will likely rise to the top. William “Senior” Mahoney was Telluride through and through.
“He took a passion of skiing. He had a passion for the town he lived in, and he had a passion for getting stuff done,” says Johnnie Stevens, a lifelong local, and friend of Mahoney. “There’s only one Billy Mahoney, and his legacy goes on, and it’s absolutely deserved.”
Senior Mahoney passed away on January 15th at his home in Montrose from complications of COVID-19. He was 92 years old.
Mahoney was born in Bonanza, Colorado, but moved to Telluride with his family in 1930, when he was 2-years old.
Before long, he was on skis. In the Telluride Historical Museum’s 2009 film “We Skied It”, Mahoney shares how it all began.
“We just skied Oak Street, and got pulled behind cars. It was Depression time, and nobody had any equipment,” said Mahoney, “I remember my dad bought me a pair of skis for $15 from Spiggles and they were made out of ash; and of course skis in those days did not have binders, just a leather strap.”
Mahoney skied Firecracker Hill and Kid’s Hill (known as Grizzly Gulch at the time). But by the 60s he was heading into the backcountry.
“From Bridal Veil Basin, to La Junta Basin, to East Bear Creek, to the Blue Lakes over on Sneffels, to Imogine Pass, Governor Basin, you name it. If there was snow there, we would ski it,” he said.
And Mahoney passed that love of skiing and adventure onto his children.
“He’d go out there and he’d pack the snow down and we’d have our disks and sleds, and we’d ski on the street. He just had all this energy,” says William “Junior” Mahoney, Mahoney’s son. “Then we had the rope tow at Firecracker Hill. That’s where I learned. He was really good with all us kids, taking us skiing all the time, because quite frankly he was pretty much just a big kid all the time anyway.”
The rope tow at Firecracker Hill stands out to others who knew him as well. It’s where Stevens remembers first meeting Mahoney as a child.
“I think the first time I remember meeting him, when I was probably 7 or 8, and he’d go up there and start that little motor. It was on a toboggan, and it would pull one or two people and Billy, he’s the guy,” says Stevens.
But it wasn’t only skiing, Junior Mahoney says his dad’s love for the outdoors spread into the summer months as well.
“Every weekend we were either out hiking and prospecting. He loved to go out and look for gold, which he was really good at, and I’d go with him,” Junior Mahoney says, “he had so much energy and excitement. It’s hard to really describe it, but that’s who he was and I got to enjoy it.”
Senior Mahoney was instrumental in the creation of the Telluride Ski Resort, but it’s not where he started. At 15-years old, Mahoney began work at the Idarado Mine – loading buckets of ore from the aerial trams.
Stevens worked for Mahoney in the mine. By that time, Mahoney was one of the men in charge. Stevens remembers him looking out for the younger guys, giving them overtime, letting them work on the weekends to make more money.
“He loved mining more than skiing, he would tell you,” says Stevens. “That’s quite a statement. He was a miner; boy I’ll tell you that. He did it all.”
After high school, Mahoney joined the Navy, but returned to Telluride after two years abroad. He married his high school sweetheart, Twylla, and continued working in the mine, until he had the opportunity to join a group who were going to build a ski resort on the mountain. Junior Mahoney remembers the day his dad told the family.
“Dad came in and said, ‘well, I’ve got this opportunity to quit the mine and go to work to build a ski area’,” Junior Mahoney remembers, “my sister and I and my mom, we were all in the dining room of the house and it was dead quiet, because none of us knew what that was going to mean, of course. I know the thought that ran through my head was ‘the mine has been there forever, and it will be there forever. Is this a good thing or not?’ But he made the decision to do that and it was probably the best decision he ever made.”
Mahoney went to work on the resort. Joe Zoline had bought the property and slowly but surely runs and lifts started to go in.
“He was there every day, all day, and that was his life,” says Junior Mahoney, “he loved it. He loved every minute of it.”
Junior Mahoney says he saw his dad as the energy and enthusiasm that fueled the creation of the ski resort.
“He just totally believed, for years and years, that we had the mountain that could be a ski area. When the opportunity finally came. When Joe Zoline hired Dad, that was like the greatest day of his life almost,” says Junior Mahoney.
Mahoney brought vast knowledge of skiable terrain, starting as the mountain’s snowcat operations manager, later becoming Mountain Manager and Vice President of the Ski Resort before retiring in 1993. In 1997, Mahoney was inducted into the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame.
He is also the reason Stevens came back to Town after graduating from college. He got Stevens a job on the Mountain.
Stevens says, “I worked with him a lot of years on a lot of complex things, and he was always the most thoughtful, hardworking, logical, smart, visionary guy. He was a Renaissance man, no question.”
Stevens would go on to become Mountain Manager and Chief Operations Officer for the resort, and he knows the impact of Mahoney’s vision and work ethic.
“Billy Mahoney, and I give him 100% credit, he decided in 1959 to draw the line of the ski area to go up the front hillside, around Needle Rock, up to Gold Hill, up to Palmyra Peak – which was just wild, and then down to Bald Mountain,” says Stevens, “We wouldn’t be skiing any of that stuff, but for Billy Mahoney. No question.”
Senior Mahoney will keep an eye out on those runs he helped to create. Junior Mahoney says his dad requested to have some of his ashes spread on the peaks above the resort.
Mahoney is survived by his wife of more than 70 years, Twylla, his children, William and Mona, his grandchildren, James, Riley, and Brady, and his great-grandchildren Lilyann, Magnolia, and Harper.
In lieu of flowers, the Mahoney family is asking members of the community to make donations to the Telluride Ski and Snowboard Club.
