Telluride Inside... and Out

Telluride adventurers' video podcasts up on iTunes

Telluride local Ben Clark with his trekking friends Jon Miller and Josh Butson spent Spring of 2009 in Nepal. The team posted five episodes of raw footage video shot during their journey on iTunes. Check it out: the episodes collectively show up first on iTunes' "New and Noteworthy" podcast page.

Telluride Inside... and Out has been posting the video segments over the past few months. This footage will be edited into a movie documenting the travel to climb 23,390' Buruntse in the Nepali Himalayas. Blogs and the video segments can also be found at www.skithehimalayas.com.

Ben Clark: "The series was released two days ago (February 28) and to have this overwhelming response, to be the most downloaded new show in the outdoor categoryand to be recognized by iTUNES blows my mind."

Telluride Inside... and Out Adventure: Ski the Himalayas #3

Telluride local Ben Clark with friends Jon Miller and Josh Butson were in Nepal in the Spring of 2009. Ben has sent along another video installment documenting their journey.

In this episode our intrepid travelers spend 17 days, much of the time in hot, humid lowland jungle on their approach to 23,390′ Buruntse.

Telluride Inside... and Out is pleased to show this example of what Telluriders do when they are not in Telluride.

Telluride local instructs at Michigan Ice Fest

by Ben Clark

Flying into Marquette, MI late on a Thursday night in February was about as exotic as my life could get. I'm a climber from Colorado and heard there was ice here, in the cold and windswept upper peninsula. Not just normal ice of course, ice that had drawn climbers to the region for a climbing festival running into its 26th year. Really???

For all the promise of cold, it was the warmth of the locals that made the trip so worthwhile. Heading out to Sand Point on Friday with Rep Bryan Kuhn and his friends, I was treated to thunker swings in a savory pillar of steep waterfall ice. We shared it with several locals, looking to experience the privacy that makes ice climbing so cherished in this region about to be inundated by weekend festivities. I was psyched to be there and happy to be surrounded by such nice people.

Telluride Inside... and Out Adventure: Ski the Himalayas #2

Telluride local Ben Clark takes Telluride on the road every spring, doing what Telluriders often do: Get out there on the edge. This is the second post in a series linking to Ben's adventures in the Himalayas. View the website and check out the video podcast.

Telluride goes to Moab

With so much variety in Telluride, it's easy to forget how much there is to do within a few hours' drive in any direction. Saturday, January 23, Damon Demas and I took an overnight trip to Moab and Arches National Park to show our visiting Chilean friend, Andres Correa, another side of our part of the country.

We got a leisurely start on Sunday, ignored the NFL conference playoffs, and spent most of the day in Arches. After exploring several of the areas close to the road, we drove out to Devil's Garden at the north end of the park and took a several hour hike, mostly in snow, out to Double O Arch.

It was a great outing, only about 2 1/2 hours away by car, on a beautiful sunny winter day. We missed another day of powder skiing at home, but had a wonderful hike, a lot of photographs, and more great memories. To top it all off, as we came up toward Norwood on the way home, Lone Cone emerged out of the wind-blown clouds, shining in the late afternoon sun.

Telluride Inside... and Out Adventure: Ski the Himalayas

[click "Play" to listen to Ben Clark's conversation with Susan]

This is day-in-the-life-stuff for Telluriders.

Backcountry turns? Sure. Ice climbing? Ditto. Bouldering and climbing in the desert? But of course. Long runs in the high country? What do you think. But Telluride local Ben Clark is not just any Telluride jock.

Clark is a successful filmmaker/enterpreneur and alpinist blessed – cursed? – with an unusually high level of the enzyme monamine oxidase (MAO) and the hormone testosterone, both of which are associated with thrill seeking. In other words, the guy is biochemically suited to the extreme endeavors such as his annual pioneering expeditions in the Himalaya. (And for flying without a net in the world of business.)

Mountainfilm in Telluride hosts fundraiser with sneak peek film 12/26

[click "Play" to hear David Holbrooke talk with Susan about the fundraiser and movie]

Ten years ago, in 1999, Mountainfilm in Telluride regular, world-class climber/author Conrad Anker found the frozen body of mountaineer George Mallory on Mount Everest. In the years that followed the discovery, Anker obsessed about Mallory much in the way Mallory had obsessed about becoming the first person ever to conquer Everest's summit. Mallory and his partner, Andrew Irvine, were last seen in 1924 only 800 feet from the top. Had the duo successfully tackled the Second Step and reached their goal? Just how much was Mallory torn between ambition and his love for his wife Ruth? What was it like to climb a mountain as forbidding as Everest using the scant gear available in the 1920s? "The Wildest Dream" endeavors to answer these questions with archival video footage of Mallory and Irvine on the mountain, love letters between Mallory and Ruth, and a bold attempt to reenact the summit bid by  Anker and Leo Houlding. Liam Neeson narrates. Also with Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson.

First snowshoe of the season

You really wanted to be in Telluride this morning. We snowshoed up our favorite trail under Colorado blue skies tricked out with cotton ball clouds, breaking a path as we climbed through the heavy white snow that accumulated over the past two days. On the way home Clint, Gina the Dog and I met a new neighbor, Andy Neary, who lives, well, Near-by in Hillside. Andy teaches snowboarding on the mountain. He has an easy way about him and a wonderful smile, so we asked if we could snap his picture. Meet Andy, enroute to who knows where. We gave him a short list of the many wonderful trail options out our back door.

Dog's Best Friend: Gina takes a hike

Telluride Inside... and Out's Gina the Dog started out life on the wrong paw. She came to us through our friend Dr. Susannah Smith, who delivered her to our doorstep just after she was neutered by Second Chance Humane Society. The bill of goods Susannah sold us was a week in our foster care, then adoption elsewhere. We were not ready for a new dog. We were in mourning. Our prize German Shepherd, Willie the Wonder Dog, had just died of cancer. What happened was predictable to our friends, including Susannah: after a week, we could not send Gina out into the cold. Gina, however, was no walk in the park. She had been abandoned and was a scrapper: certain dogs ticked her off big time and she went for them. One trainer told us to fagettaboutit. Off her. Then another friend, Michelle Kodis, told us about Ted Hoff of Cottonwood Ranch & Kennel, now TIO's dog expert. It took a month, but Ted, a dog whisperer, transformed Gina into the dog she is today, the one in the video, cute as a button. Ted is the Cesar Millan of the Telluride region. His mantra is pretty much the same as the celebrity Dog Whisperer: discipline, exercise, affection.

(editor's note: Ted Hoff found that his other hat, the one for Cottonwood Hunt Club, was a tight fit this week, so TIO is substituting for Ted.)

Telluride Inside... and Out goes to church

Telluride Inside... and Out set out early this Sunday morning for a hike in our backyard with GIna the Dog. On such  a brazenly beautiful blue-sky day in Telluride, deer scat looked like chocolate malt balls against the crunchy white snow under our boots. Our route: up Eider Creek to Rudy's Trail and the cliff band overlooking our house, returning via Rudy's Trail to Mill Creek Road, the bike path, then Home Sweet Home.