A huge steak with baked potato, salad, an appetizer and ice cream brownies for dessert, all for 12 dollars. This is exactly what dinner at a real Wild West ranch should look like. We found the ranch by chance on the side of the road in the small town of Montrose on the way from Crested Butte to Telluride. Well fortified, we finally tackled the last few miles to the old mining town in the middle of the mighty San Juan Mountains.
While the stylish historic center of Telluride is mainly home to bed and breakfast accommodation, in recent years the Mountain Village has developed on a high plateau 300 meters above the town with numerous hotels and apartments of all kinds. Not surprisingly, our feudal room in the Capella Hotel was larger than our apartment at home. "Ski in Ski out" takes on a whole new dimension in Telluride thanks to the American approach to service. Not only is the Capella Hotel right on the slopes, but the guys and girls from the ski depot lay out the skis for guests so accurately that you can really get straight in and ski off.
Heliskiing was on the agenda on day five of our Colorado road trip. Telluride has one of only two heliskiing companies in Colorado. After a short briefing on everything from avalanche transceiver operation to the best way to get into the helicopter, we were off. From the air, we got our first impression of the size and splendor of the San Juan Mountains.
Then out of the helicopter and into the first warm-up run, which was still quite leisurely at first. After all, the guides wanted to see who they had with them. The slopes we approached were exactly as you would expect from many heliski pictures: untouched and epically wide. We shifted up a gear on the second descent. 15-20 long turns, full speed, the spray of dry San Juan powder and far away from any civilization; what a feeling! Clouds rolled in around midday. However, the pilot knew that the visibility was even better further north and so we flew a good fifteen minutes over to the northern regions of Helitrax County. The slopes are a little steeper here. Not extreme, but just enough to make them really fun for good skiers. With 30 centimetres of fresh snow, it didn't matter that the sun had given way to more snowfall in the meantime.
We ended the heliskiing day with our Australian companions over a good Colorado Fat Tire beer. The next day, it was time to explore the Telluride ski resort, which we had only ever seen from the air.
The Telluride ski resort
With 18 lifts and a vertical drop of almost 1,400 meters, the Telluride ski resort is one of the largest and, above all, most challenging areas in Colorado. At just over 4,000 meters, Palmyra Peak is the main playground for freeriders. The ascent to the summit from the Prospect Express mountain station takes around 45 minutes. The runs in the steep couloirs are really tough. As the weather wasn't exactly conducive to shooting that day, we were able to confidently put the camera away and devote ourselves entirely to skiing. We shot at full speed after our companions Tom and Bryan, who of course know their home resort like the back of their hand. In addition to the multitude of possible options in Prospect and Revelation Bowl, it's the descent down to Telluride downtown that really makes this magnificent ski resort stand out. And even if Telluride is not necessarily at the top of the list for European tour operators, I can only say: just like Crested Butte, Telluride is an absolutely worthwhile stop on any ski road trip through Colorado.
