Day 11 - Destination Telluride

Breakfast early as is the norm. Loaded the jeep, checked out of the hotel and headed to Beaver Creek to get a half day in before the trek to Telluride.
(will have to make do without pics today because wifi in hotel isn't sorted yet, and hotspot from my iphone is sloooooow).

Anyway we left Vail and headed for Beaver Creek via Arrowhead. Why mess with a good solution.
It was another beautiful warm, sunny blue bird day. Maybe a couple of degrees cooler than yesterday...maybe.

Had some very enjoyable runs at BC...we all decided it is a really cool mountain. We spent a very pleasant half hour lounging in deck chairs outside the Spruce restaurant mid way up the mountain, and wound the day up at 2pm.

Quick change out of ski gear and it was time to hit the road for the 4 1/2 hour road trip to Telluride.
A beautiful day for driving, so the trip was uneventful. The drive through Glenwood canyon was most impressive. Glenwood Canyon is a deep, winding canyon forged by the Colorado river than runs for about 30km and terminates at Glenwood Springs. A town renowned for it's thermal springs.

Shortly after Glenwood Springs we encountered some very rugged terrain with towering cliffs, pinnacle like features eroded from the landscape, and massive boulders perched precariously close to the highway. The scenery was reminiscent of Monument Valley meets the Chortens of Omarama.
Monument Valley is in the general vicinity, give or take 100 miles, so I think that probably had something to do with the topography.

We left mini Monument Valley behind and drove for about an hour across plains until eventually a vast mountain range started to loom on the horizon. The light was fading as we drove up into the mountains and approached Telluride.
Telluride is located in a box canyon and as you wind your way towards the resort the canyon seems to close in on you. In the dim glow of the half moon it was quite stunning.

We pulled into Telluride at 7:20pm and checked into Double Diamond condominiums. Unloaded the car and took a stroll into town to locate a suitable place to eat and a supermarket to get supplies for breakfast. After some ducking and diving we eventually found both. The Brown Dog pub was the venue for dinner, and on what appeared to be a relatively sleepy night in Telluride, it was the busiest place in town.

The Brown Dog Pub

First impressions of Telluride is that the town is really cool. The architecture is authentic American mid west. You feel like you should be riding down the main street on a horse with a six shooter strapped to your side. The contrast to the faux European meets Hans Christian Anderson of Vail is stark. That's not to knock Vail, just an observation. And you can park anywhere unlike all the other resorts we've visited where parking is non existent or at a premium.

The terrain looks impressive so the skiing promises to be pretty exciting. In fact we were all about as excited as if it was out first day on skis as we drove into town.

Looking forward to an adventurous day tomorrow.