WHEN SKIING OR SNOWBOARDING burns all your calories -- which it will here, as Telluride’s remoteness all but guarantees short lift lines -- a number of eateries vie to replenish them. Burgers, chili, and other casual fare await midmountain at Gorrono Ranch, a former Basque-sheep ranch. In town, there’s Baked in Telluride, the region’s oldest restaurant (it opened in 1976). Its chocolate donuts, ham-and-Swiss-cheese-filled croissants, and turkey empanadas promise a high carb-to-dollar ratio. The newest restaurant is thousands of feet high, near the See Forever run; Alpino Vino is a wine bar/stube that seems as though it was airlifted from the Alps. Sit by its crackling fireplace, peruse a wine list so extensive it needs a bookmark, sample gourmet cheeses, and share an antipasto plate.
For après-ski, check out the town’s oldest tavern, the New Sheridan Bar, which is in your hotel. Opened in 1895 along with the hotel, the New Sheridan Bar didn’t even close during Prohibition. Except for one quiet, unobtrusive TV, it still vibes nineteenth-century elegance, with its stately billiard tables, mahogany paneling, hand-carved bar, lead-glass divider panels, and a giant, vintage painting of a Peter Paul Reubens–style nude.
In addition to the bar, the hotel originally hosted two restaurants. The Continental Room Restaurant boasted 16 velvet-lined, curtained booths, each equipped with a button for discreetly summoning the waiter only when needed. Who knows what kind of bodice ripping and ascot loosening occurred within. The service and cuisine of the adjoining American Room, which was a more traditional emporium, claimed to rival the Brown Palace Hotel dining room in Denver. These days, the New Sheridan’s Chop House Restaurant serves some of the best food in all of Colorado.
In Telluride, you’re always brushing up against history. In 2000, the New Sheridan Hotel was accepted as a member of the National Trust for Historic Hotels of America, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is tasked with identifying and protecting the irreplaceable. For large-scale renovations and improvements in 2008, the New Sheridan spent $7 million to maintain the original integrity, architecture, and ambience of the hotel. Fortunately for modern visitors, history didn’t keep the New Sheridan from installing iPod docking stations, LCD flat-screen televisions, and two new rooftop hot tubs.
TELLURIDE’S MOST ANCIENT HISTORY -- its geologic formation -- keeps it riveting. Eons before the miners got here, glaciers carved out a drainage passage with steep walls on three sides: a so-called box canyon. To the glaciers’ everlasting credit, they opened the canyon to the west. That east-west orientation lets locals and tourists ponder heavenly sunsets long after other Colorado mountain towns dwell in shadow. You might want to spend the gloaming roaming the old clapboard storefronts, discovering Telluride’s new sophistication. What was once a rowdy saloon may now house a Western art gallery; a stylish boutique may occupy what used to be a brazen bordello.
Waterfalls are another benefit of the box canyon. Because the San Juan Mountains are Colorado’s steepest range and all that precipitation (300 inches of snow a year) has to melt somewhere, Telluride enjoys several stunning waterfalls. The easiest to reach are the 60-foot-tall Cornet Falls, located just a quarter mile up a steep trail from the top of Aspen Street. Ingram Falls are the most obvious. From town, you can clearly see the huge, 125-foot-tall white ribbon churning. Drive east on Colorado Avenue, which everybody calls Main Street, past the old Pandora Mill, and you’ll see the dramatic Bridal Veil Falls, which plunge more than 300 feet, making them the tallest free-falling waterfalls in Colorado. When sections of the waterfalls freeze, they stand as spectacular ice sculptures.
Some say Telluride was named for tellurium, a gold-bearing ore. Others say it means “to hell you ride,” as a reflection of the boisterous nature of the town when it was a mining outpost in the 1800s. Whichever is right, Telluride remains both -- kind of golden, kind of boisterous. When sunset fades, the restaurants and saloons rattle their vintage tin ceilings. When sunrise finally peeks over the mountains to the east, you (Telluriders and visitors alike) prepare to pop moguls and schuss groomers. Usually, the snow is too deep and the runs are too long to think much about local history. But somewhere in your unconscious being, you’re grateful the miners picked this place to start a town.
Rob Story is a contributing editor to Skiing and Powder magazines and the author of Telluride Storys. He nailed his first black-diamond run at age 11.
If You Go …
Alpino Vino: 565 Mountain Village Boulevard, located near the top of Gold Hill and See Forever run; www.tellurideskiresort.com
Baked in Telluride: 127 South Fir Street, (970) 728-4775; www.bakedintelluride.com
Gorrono Ranch: 565 Mountain Village Boulevard, located under the Village Express (Lift 4); www.tellurideskiresort.com
New Sheridan Hotel: 231 West Colorado Avenue, (800) 200-1891; www.newsheridan.com
Telluride Ski Resort: 565 Mountain Village Boulevard, (970) 728-6900; www.tellurideskiresort.com