The Town of Telluride is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous town of San Miguel County in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Colorado. The town is a former silver mining camp on the San Miguel River in the western San Juan Mountains. A Telluride Historic District which includes some or all of Telluride is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and further is one of Colorado’s 20 National Historic Landmarks.
Telluride sits in a box canyon. Steep forested mountains and cliffs surround it. Bridal Veil Falls is at the head of the canyon. Numerous weathered ruins of old mining operations dot the hillsides. A free gondola connects the town with its companion town Mountain Village, Colorado at the base of the ski area.
Telluride and the surrounding area have featured prominently in pop culture. The town of Telluride has served as the backdrop for several television commercials, is home to an international film festival, and has been the subject of songs such as “Smugglers Blues” by Glenn Frey, an essay by Edward Abbey, and the eponymous songs by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Tim McGraw, and later recorded by Josh Gracin. Telluride is also known for its ski resort and slopes during the winter as well as an extensive festival schedule during the summer. If you are coming to Telluride to ski, Telluride Ski Rentals is a must visit destination website!
Telluride Skiing and Winter Activities:
Telluride is best known for its world-class ski resort, which boasts 1,700 acres of terrain and three air gardens and terrain parks. Other popular winter activities include Nordic skiing, dog sledding, snowboarding, sleigh rides, snowmobiling, ice climbing, heli-skiing, ice skating, sledding and more.
Check out the leading sources for all your Ski Rental needs and Telluride Ski Shop news. There are many Telluride Ski Rental locations to serve you in Telluride and Mountain Village, making it easy for you to rent skis, exchange, and return your ski rentals wherever it is most convenient for you. The snow is falling and the conditions are looking great for another fantastic season in Telluride. Save time and money by reserving your ski rental equipment in advance; and have it waiting when you arrive!
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Telluride Ski Resort:
The resort was founded by Joe Zoline who hoped to build a “world class resort” from scratch. Telluride’s remoteness, Zoline acknowledged, is also what makes the resort special. Weekend warrior skiers from the big cities don’t get there by car. This makes Telluride a more out of the way, full-service ski resort with exceedingly short lift lines. The small number of commercial flights directly into Telluride town airport (9000 ft high) limit direct access by air. Access by air is greatly via nearby Montrose Colorado, with its lower elevation and long runways that accommodate regional jets from all over the US. Montrose is a 1 1/2 hour drive to Telluride.
Geography:
Only one road reaches Telluride year round, but there are also two off-road routes. Telluride sits in an isolated spot in the Four Corners region of Colorado where the New Mexico, Utah and Arizona borders come together. From the west, Colorado Route 145 is the most common way into Telluride, however there are two alternate passes to enter the town as well. Imogene Pass is the more forgiving of the two passes, though it still requires 4×4 experience and should not be taken lightly. Black Bear Pass is noted to be Colorado’s most dangerous pass. It is only passable in one direction because of a treacherous stair step section. Telluride is situated at an altitude of 8,750 feet.
On the eastern side of town, or the falls side, Bridal Veil Falls and the Generator House which sits at the top of the falls overlook the Victorian town of Telluride. The power plant house is owned by Eric Jacobson, who restored the house and the generator inside, which now provides about 25 percent of Telluride with its electricity. The house was originally used to power the Smuggler-Union Mine and requires an aerial tramway for Jacobson and his family to get home. It is the second-oldest operating AC generator in the United States, the first being the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant near Ophir, Colorado.
The town is served by air transportation via Telluride Regional Airport, the highest commercial airport in the United States. The airport is considered challenging by pilots because of frequent adverse weather conditions, high altitude, and the extremely rugged mountain terrain which surrounds the airport on nearly all sides.
Telluride History:
The Mining Days:
Gold was first discovered in 1858. John Fallon made the first claim in Marshal Basin above Telluride in 1875 and early settlement of Telluride followed. The town itself was founded in 1878. Telluride was originally named “Columbia,” but due to confusion with Columbia, California, the name was changed by the post office in 1887. The town was named after the chemical element tellurium, which was never actually found in the mountains of Telluride. Tellurium is a metalloid element sometimes associated with deposits of gold and silver. An alternate theory for the naming of Telluride is that it is a contraction of “to hell you ride”. Telluride’s mines were rich in zinc, lead, copper, silver, and, of course, gold.
Telluride began slowly because of its isolated location. In 1881 a toll road was opened by Otto Mears which allowed wagons to go where only pack mules could go before. This increased the number of people in Telluride, but it was still expensive to get gold-rich ore out of the valley. In 1890 the railroad reached town, which brought in more mines and brought out more ore.
In June 1889, Butch Cassidy before becoming associated with his gang, “the wild bunch”, robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride. This was his first major recorded crime. He exited the bank with $24,580, and later became famous as a bank robber.
Around the turn of the 20th century there were serious labor disputes in the mines near Telluride. The Colorado National Guard was called out and there were deaths on both sides. Unions were formed as miners joined the Western Federation of Miners in 1896. 1899 brought big changes with most mines granting miners $3 a day for an 8 hour day’s work plus a boarding pay of $1 a day. This came at a time when workers were putting in 10-12 hour days and the mines ran 24 hours a day. Work conditions were treacherous, with mines above 12,000 ft and a lack of safety measures, not to mention bitter weather in winter months. Even the boarding houses were precariously placed on the mountainsides.
Telluride’s most famous historic mines are the Tomboy, Pandora, Smuggler-Union, Nellie, and Sheridan mines. Beginning in 1939, the hard-rock mining operations in the Red Mountain and Telluride mining districts began a lengthy consolidation under the Idarado Mining Company (Idarado), presently a division of Newmont Mining. The consolidation ended in 1953 with Idarado’s acquisition of the Telluride Mines. Idarado kept the underground workings and mill operations open at Telluride’s Pandora hard-rock mine until 1978. When the mine closed for good; the snow which once tormented Telluride’s miners had become the town’s new gold,in the form of skiing and tourism.
The Telluride Skiing Era:
Mining was Telluride’s only industry until 1972, when the first ski lift was installed by Telluride Ski Resort founder Joseph T. Zoline and his Telluride Ski Corporation (Telco). Joe Zoline bought the land for the future resort in 1969 and began to craft the slopes. Along with his mountain manager, Telluride native Bill “Sr.” Mahoney, they slowly and thoughtfully put together a plan for sustained development of Telluride and the region. As mining phased out and a new service industry phased in, the local population changed sharply. Mining families fled Telluride to settle in places like Moab, Utah, where uranium mining offered hope of continued employment. Mining families were replaced by what locals referred to as “hippies,” young people with a 1960s world view which frequently clashed with the values of Telluride’s old timers. These newcomers were characterized as being idle trust funders who were drawn to the town for a casual life style and outdoor excitements such as hang gliding, mountain climbing, and kayaking.
The new population was initially anti-growth and rallied against any economic expansion, including growth due to tourism and skiing. At one point a serious effort was made to ban cars from the city limits and force visitors to use horse drawn carts. Success did not come overnight for Telluride in this environment. The seventies were a time of fluctuating snowfalls and economic recession. However, the town’s now famous music and film festivals were immune from anti-growth criticism and flourished. These festivals exposed hundreds of thousands to the grandeur of the valley for the first time and created iconic associations with elite entertainers. Meanwhile ski area founder Joe Zoline worked hard to put Telluride on the map, developing one of the best mountains in North America for expert skiers and creating infrastructure for tourism which respected Telluride’s need to stay small and beautiful.
As the final ore carts were rolling out of the Pandora mine, tourists began to seriously discover Telluride for its magnificent views, expert skiing, and famous autumn color changes. After the brutal snow drought of 1976 which nearly wiped out the embryonic ski and lodging industry the town started to rebound economically. In 1978 a stake of the ski area was purchased by Ron Allred and his partner Jim Wells to form the Telluride Company. The new owners expanded the infrastructure which Zoline had put into place by adding a gondola connecting the Town of Telluride with the Mountain Village.
During the 1980s, Telluride developed a reputation for being “Colorado’s best kept secret,” which paradoxically made it one of the more well known resort communities. Wealthy skiers flocked to the world class mountain all winter and sightseers kept hotel rooms full all summer. In the 1980s Telluride also became notorious in the drug counter culture for being a drop point for Mexican smugglers and a favorite place for wealthy importers to enjoy some downtime. The town was even featured in the hit song by Glenn Frey from Miami Vice, “Smugglers Blues.” For a while the modern Telluride was living up to its Wild West history. This type of attention, as it turned out, was just what the town needed to differentiate it from Aspen. The festivals combined with Telluride’s bad-boy town image attracted celebrities like Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey, and Oliver Stone. By the mid 1990s, Telluride had shed both its mining personality and drug image to establish itself as a premier resort town balancing modern culture with fascinating western history. In 2003, Prospect Bowl, an extension to the ski area opened, providing the resort with many new trails and runs. In 2007-08, the ski area opened some of the most extreme, in-bound, hike-to terrain in the country. Most lifts in the area are high speed quad chairs capable of holding four passengers. The highest lift on the mountain reaches an altitude of 12,255 feet.
Get out there and ski. Be sure to reserve your Telluride Ski Rentals, and have a blast!
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