Born to Run

I don’t run the Imogene; I’ve never run the 18 miles up and over from Ouray to Telluride. I don’t run much at all anymore, unless it’s to sprint after a grandchild who is crawling toward the stairs.

But I do remember the feeling, from years past, when limbs and lungs were working just right, and the trail led away into Siren-call hills and it felt as if I could run forever.

Hidden High Grade

In the compressor house next door to the mine portal they gave us yellow hard hats and waterproof rain jackets. Then we climbed aboard the trammer and straddled its hard metal bench. A tour guide who calls himself Rock Chip swung up on the engine, and the trammer clanked and jerked into the tunnel. The light of the outside world, the warm summer sunlight of Ouray, quickly shrank to a silver dollar behind us, then vanished altogether.

Debunking a Pie-in-the-sky Eurovision

Josh Geetter’s Alps-inspired vision for the future of skiing in the western San Juans (Watch Commentary July 29) was a seductive read. Seductive because anyone who has skied the big, interconnected resorts in Europe can’t help but have fond memories.

Saber Tooth

Hiking alone in the dark timber a couple of weeks ago, I came across a skull. (Earlier, I’d run into a bow hunter who used the term “dark timber,” referring to the spruce-fir zone above Buckhorn Lakes.) It was dark in there. The spruce especially were huge and old. Their vanilla-scented bark soared up into a canopy that almost completely shut out the sky.