THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701250047
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Travel
SOURCE: BY STEPHEN HARRIMAN, TRAVEL EDITOR
LENGTH: 220 lines
TELLURIDE, Colo.
SOMETIME DURING THE NIGHT the last of 11 inches of new, soft, powdery snow settled gently on a base of 72 to 74 inches of packed powder. It has made what appears to be giant white muffins with rounded tops on patio tables, enormous white bread loaves on window boxes.
Do you know how much snow 72 inches is? Six feet.
Look out your window. Can you see your car parked outside? If there were 72 inches of snow out there, you couldn't. It would be buried.
This is SNOW country, here in the San Juan Range - part of the southern Rocky Mountains - in southwest Colorado. Telluride, still so genuinely and charmingly Old West that it's a National Historic District, gets an average of 300 inches of snow each winter.
Nothing unusual about another foot or so. Think they closed the schools? Ha. They know how to deal with it. It's hardly a topic of conversation. The people around here are talking about the folks over at Wolf Creek, east of here a ways, who just got another 80 inches.
It's ski country, too. Obviously. Long white runs stream down the mountains like a giant's tears between stands of dark spruce and Ponderosa pine. More than 1,000 skiable acres of groomed powder above Telluride. Deep and steep. A vertical drop of 3,165 feet. Longest run is nearly three miles.
I don't ski.
Why am I here?
Because a LOT of people don't ski - there's a lot more of us, in fact, than them that do - and I'm here to tell you that there's plenty more to do in the winter at many mountain resorts than snapping skis or a snowboard onto your ka-lunk, ka-lunky Robocop boots and sliding down a hill. Without brakes.
Ski? No, thanks, I'm just looking. And what a sight. ``Snow Country'' magazine readers regularly rate Telluride as the most scenic resort in America. It's situated in the heart of the greatest concentration of 14,000-foot peaks in the United States.
Out there - seems almost close enough to touch - is that big, ragged mountain ridge you see in the background of the Coors beer commercial, the one with the young hunks playing volleyball and Frisbee and all sorts of things. It's stunningly beautiful in real life, glistening white from the new-fallen snow against a background of cloudless, blue denim sky. The commercials were filmed over there at the little Telluride airport that sits on the edge of a mesa.
It's an absolutely stunning . . . sorry, words fail me. That's no more telling you what it's really like, no more capturing the whole picture, than telling you that Sandra Bullock has a nice smile.
``If Telluride ain't paradise, then heaven can wait,'' is a quote the locals like to toss out with pride. Dizzy Gillespie said that. That will be the first of many names I'll drop.
Another great thing about Telluride is that it's not the easiest place in the world to get to - that's great once you DO get here - so consequently it's not overrun.
Most people fly into Montrose, then drive an hour and a half, through the high plains and into the mountains, to get here.
Ralph Lauren has a big ranch on the way in. Stretches more than nine miles along the road, a fellow said. And not a single outlet store in sight. Imagine. Can't see his place, either. He built himself about a $4.5 million log cabin, the fellow said, then hid it down in a draw.
This is a place where people that most of us sillies regard as celebrities like to come to get away from the crowds. Oliver Stone has big place nearby. So do Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Somebody said Stormin' Norman dropped in the other week. And up there is Oprah's place. My, my, my. I know the Mississippi where Oprah came from. This is a long way from Kosciusko and Attala County.
Mostly, though, I came because The Peaks at Telluride is consistently voted among the Top 10 spas in the United States by readers of Conde Nast Traveler, and I'd been told it is among the nation's most comprehensive and innovative.
So here I lie, naked beneath this enormous green towel, the lights low, classical music playing softly in one of the private spa treatment rooms. I am, as I understand it, about halfway through a body treatment called a Deep Forest Exfoliation.
If you could see me - we both can be thankful you can't - it might look as if I have been involved in some sort of rural Colorado outdoor breakfast cookout accident.
I am covered - almost all of me except for my face and, uh, down there - by a cosmetic ``mask'' consisting of oatmeal, cornmeal, Colorado clay and pine needle oil, stirred to a consistency resembling pancake batter. In fact, it looks a lot like the very pancake batter, complete with dirt, I whipped up in about 1954 when I was trying for a Boy Scout cooking merit badge.
You know, some people might think I'm not working. It must look that way. But it's just my body that's lying here. Some people exercise; I innercise. Some people work out; I work in. Of course I'm really doing something because I'm working on this story. It just looks like I'm doing nothing. My mind is working. Thinking.
I'm wondering, for instance, as this ``mask'' hardens and draws bad stuff out of my body, how someone thought up this mixture in the first place.
Oops. Darn. Spilled it all. Well, so much for the cereal and muffins. There goes breakfast. Now what'll I do with this mess in the dirt? I know! I'll rub it all over my body.
Maybe that's how it happened.
Anyway, Vicki, a superb physical therapist, interrupts my reverie with instructions to scrub all this stuff off thoroughly in the shower and let her know when I'm clean and back under the towel. Next comes a botanical oil massage - cedarwood, lavender, sage, spruce, pine and canola oils, which is where the ``Deep Forest'' name comes from - that is supposed to rehydrate and nourish my skin.
That done, she wraps me in a hot muslin sheet that has steeped in an infusion of wildflowers and herbs. The wrap causes the oils to soak in and soothe the skin.
I may looked like a baked potato or maybe a mummy, wrapped neck to toes as I am, but I feel like a million dollars. Smell good, too, in a woodsy sort of way.
I sampled two other treatments, which I picked as much for for their names as anything else.
One was a Targeted Massage with Parafango. This begins with a hot pack of paraffin mixed with fango - a mineral-rich volcanic mud - that looks a lot like a big, thin block of fudge but not nearly as messy. This is placed on a particular area - in my case the neck and shoulders - to increase circulation and reduce tension. This is followed by a complete Swedish massage.
The other was Hydrotherapy, during which I was submerged in a tub of hot water into which was poured a mixture of salicyl powder, volcanic ash and pine needle extract, then pummeled about by jets of water, much like a Jacuzzi. After that, while still submerged, I was massaged from toe to neck by a therapist-held underwater high-pressure nozzle.
Each of these treatments costs $91, including gratuity, and lasts about an hour. While that may seem pricey, it is probably less than I would pay for a ski costume, including skis and boots, and a lift ticket.
The spa at The Peaks is an elaborate affair, 42,000 square feet spread over four floors. In addition to the individual treatment rooms, it has men's and women's locker areas that each have a steam room, sauna and large mineral-water whirlpool baths, indoor and outdoor heated pools - it was a unique experience to swim outside in mildly warm water as snowflakes collected in my hair - huge exercise rooms with elaborate equipment and even a climbing wall that seemed to rise about four floors.
There's a sort of protocol in the spa that I think is pretty neat. After an individualized special treatment, you are invited to relax in a lounge area they call the tea room. Comfy chairs, tables and, of course, a tea buffet.
There are eight herbal infusions made by Tazo Beverages of Portland, Ore., from which to choose, including blends called Zen, Refresh, Spice, Calm and .
Passion. Should something like this be out on a table in a co-ed room where everyone is clothed only (presumably) in terrycloth robes?
Passion, in a lavender packet. Ingredients: hibiscus flowers, rose hips, orange peel, lemon grass, cinnamon, citric acid, licorice, natural tropical flavors and - I am still reading from the packet - the mumbled chantings of a certified tea shaman.
More words on the packet advised: ``True passion is intoxicating and invigorating, soothing and sensuous, mysterious and magical. We just thought you should know what you are in for.''
Well, thank you very much for sharing. For a moment I almost had forgotten. I was tempted to throw caution to the wind and take a sip, but now I think I'll just take a packet or two pack to the privacy of my own home and share this experience with someone . . . well, you know.
I think I'll have a cup of ``Calm'' instead. Yes. That's what I need.
Yes, I did get out. Snowmobiling is my outdoor winter activity of choice. A snowmobile has the power to take me up into the mountains as high as I choose to go to experience the raw beauty of winter . . . with no effort on my part. And, unlike skis or snowboards, they have brakes.
A few miles south of Telluride, John Wheaton of Telluride Outside outfitters and I mounted up on Polaris machines and headed out.
We skirted along a ridge trail high above the Illium Valley and the south fork of the San Miguel River and viewed the stark and steep cliffs of the Ames Wall. Over there in the little town of Ames is where a fellow named L.L. Nunn set up the world's first high-voltage alternating current power plant.
Thomas Edison, a proponent of direct current, said it wouldn't work. But Nunn convinced George Westinghouse to provide the generators and got the brilliant Croatian electrical wizard Nikola Tesla to design the motor. And Sha-zamm! - soon there was electrical power to operate the mining machinery high up in the mountains, and, by 1894, the entire town of Telluride was lighted by electricity.
Down in the valley, crashing through the snow we saw a herd of elk - eight, nine, there's a little one bringing up the rear, 10 of them - chest deep in the white drifts.
At a point called the Needles we saw where the geology of the region was influenced both by plate tectonics and by volcanic action.
At 10,800 feet, among dark, snow-laden fir, spruce and Ponderosa pines and lighter naked aspen, we explored a deserted and tumbled-down mining camp called Alta, that once produced copper, tin, lead, zinc, silver and gold.
Snowmobiling has to be at least as exhilarating as skiing. And we went places that few skiers, even cross-country types, would dare to tread.
No one's sure where the name Telluride came from. Some say it was named for tellurium, a gold-bearing ore. Others say it came from the response to the question, ``Where's this road lead to?'' Answer: ``To hell you ride.''
Interestingly, it's not far from Purgatory, another ski resort down near Durango.
Telluride was, in the beginning, which was in the 1880s, a hell of a place, as most western mining camps were. There were mansions for those who found their fortunes in the ore-rich mountains, and shacks for those who pursued the dream. There was a cozy little opera house, where Sarah Bernhardt and Lillian Gish performed (it is still in use), and numerous whorehouses (which are not).
Locals boast that William Jennings Bryan gave his famous ``Cross of Gold'' speech in front of the New Sheridan Hotel (new in 1895). Actually, he gave that speech at the 1896 Democratic Convention in Chicago. But politicians do tend to say the same thing over and over, so it's just possible he may have mentioned a Cross of Gold when he spoke in Telluride.
Butch Cassidy robbed his first bank here, July 24, 1889, and the $20,000 take apparently convinced him that it was a pretty lucrative line of work. In one of the local bordellos called the Senate - wonder if that was as funny then as it is now - a fellow named Jack Dempsey found work as a dishwasher. Dishes? Must have been what we'd call today a full-service bordello.
One of old Telluride's most interesting people you probably haven't heard of was a Dr. Balderston, who took out his own appendix in what might have been the world's first self-performed appendectomy. He did it at the miners hospital, today the Telluride Historical Museum. Even more interesting is the fact that the doc's appendix was found to be quite healthy.
Today Telluride, a town of maybe 1,500, retains much of its rustic charm, with the rough edges smoothed by time. Genuine Old West, not a replica. It nestles deep in a box canyon beneath spectacular Bridal Veil Falls (365 feet of frozen blue ice in the winter) near the headwaters of the San Miguel River. Its people are mostly young, friendly and laid-back - artists, shopkeepers and hard-core skiers - given to retro-dressing as if they were still the 1880s.
Great place to browse, shop, have a drink, maybe a bite to eat. Great place for apres ski or apres NON-ski. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Set in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado, The Peaks is
the home of a leading resort spa. Telluride is in the valley at
left.
KEYWORDS: TELLURIDE HEALTH SPA COLORADO