Telluride Day 12 - Jaw dropping

The day dawned sunny and clear. Another beautiful spring day in January. Excitement was running high. We breakfasted early on the meusli and toast we'd purchased at the super market the night before. Double Diamond condominiums is a short stroll from chair 7, an original fixed 2 seater chair that climbs a steep face called Coon Skin. Short stroll is a slight exaggeration. We step out our front door, walk about 10 paces, clip into our skis and slide 50m to the lift.

Chair 7 and Coon Skin run viewed from our balcony

As we rode Chair 7 over the ridge into the unloading station the stunning mountain vista that is Telluride opened up in front of us. Words can't do Telluride justice. But I'll give it my best shot. We were surrounded by steep towering peaks, rugged cliff faces, deep ravines and endless trees. Everywhere ski lifts climb up precipitous faces to seemingly impossible locations.

Resolution Bowl chair climbs to 12,580 ft

The area is massive but we managed to ride most the lifts. The plan was to familiarise ourselves with the terrain and scope out the good runs in the hope we will get some powder in the next couple of days. Off piste was quite hard snow, so the groomers were the order of the day. Telluride has some spectacularly steep groomed runs so there was no shortage of challenges.

The mountain is riddled with intense skiing opportunities. Even riding the lifts can be daunting. One triple chair called Plunge spans a ravine where for about 10 seconds you're dangling 500 ft above the ground. I was riding with a local, and as we approached this particular location he appeared quite miffed when I asked if we could lower the safety bar.

In contrast to the intensity of the mountain, the staff are all friendly and laid back. We were greeted with a 'Howdy' at the base of each lift, and everywhere all time great rock music is blasting out...Led Zeppelin, The Who, Queen...all time great in my opinion. Telluride is a really cool place.

Downtown Telluride from Coon Skin run.

Mason showing how it's done

All in all an awesome day of skiing, finally pulling up outside our condo at 4pm.

We changed, freshened up and took a stroll into town. On the spur of the moment we decided to ride the gondola to the Mountain Village and have dinner at one of the many restaurants. Telluride is essentially two villages. The original mining town where we are staying. And a much new purpose build ski village in the next valley over. The gondola runs up over the mountain connecting both villages. It operates until midnight every night so we took the gondola to the mountain village, had a delicious dinner in a restaurant called Tomboy Tavern and rode the gondola home again.

Out and about in Telluride

As the subject line says, Telluride was jaw dropping in every way.