Sunday, June 19, 2011

Festival Echoes, "Gentle On My Mind"

Preparing for a festival as grand as the Telluride Bluegrass Festival takes time. For many Festivarians, the week to 10 day experience is their one vacation of the year. The excitement in the weeks before the Summer Solstice reaches a fever pitch the weekend before the music starts. In the early years, an entire festival was spent flopped in a tent in Town Park listening to the music from there, too sick from altitude, sun, and fun to be able to move.
  On one of the early week rides to Tom Boy

As the festival caught on, pitching a tent in an empty lot or sleeping in a car late in the week ceased being possible. Prior planning became necessary and arrival in the campground early in the week morphed to getting there the weekend before. Town passes on the Landcruiser faded to no longer trying to leave town at all. We started working at the ticket booths, renting bikes, and moving in for the week.

There are many of us now, who only meet in Telluride for the summer solstice. Friends from New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and places even further coming together for the hooten-anie of them all. And some never coming again as the years have tumbled down like water over the rocks and cliffs taking friends along the way. It is the same for the musicians who played for us here and have, in no small number, passed on.
Vasser Clements and "friends" (including Tim, Bella, Sam and Pat) 

One year, Hartford's floating music caught hold. Laughing children blew bubbles, sunburned lovers clung and shuffled in a dusty dance while the breeze began to stir. Aspens waved, leaves flickering in the wind, while great billowing clouds moved above the towering peaks soon to bring cold rain out of the impossibly blue sky. Wisps of flowers and cotton from trees floated in the air and the eternal nature of what this day held struck home.

Many years went by from that great moment in the sun dappled afternoon, in the happy crowd, in that beautiful place. Sunday afternoons have come and gone in other festivals listening to "In the Land of the Navajo", or Doc Watson calling out Bella, or the Telluride All-stars jaming when bittersweet realization twangs our hearts that the festival is coming to an end. Finally, the inevitable Monday late morning stop at Baked in Telluride and the drive out of a comparatively empty town.

It was the middle of summer several years ago while working in Rico that rolling into a relatively quiet Telluride I wandered down to Town Park. Strolling into the area in front of the stage and gazing up at the mountain side Hartford's banjo picking lofted into the air from that faraway afternoon with the bits of flowers and cotton from the trees that floated by.  Suddenly laughing at the thought of sound that wasn't there, yet sensing the deeply embedded experience both in this place and in our hearts, just as rich as the summer colors. Happily, and with a tear in the eye, I headed for home.
Bridal Veil Falls






Saturday, June 4, 2011

Voices in the Wind

Often, the best way to the mountain top is where fierce energy has blown down a path to the bottom. Snow avalanches do this. Where they load and run, decade to decade, is a clear path to the top, avoiding the tree fall and other debris in the deep dark woods that densely cover the hills.
Today was one of those days. I got a late start after checking the gear and carefully arranging the pack. The hike, work at the mine, and walk back out would take me into the early hours of nightfall even on this June day. The climb always cleared the pipes and the mind and today was no different. A cool breeze pulsed up the hillside chilling the sweat drenched clothes. As I topped out, light headed at the ridge I suddenly started as I heard voices. Looking all about there was no-one to be seen. Snatches of a far away conversation brought to me in pieces in the abrupt and now mysterious winds coming up from the valley. I was now well primed for the ghosts from yesterday that haunt these old mine sites.

Following the ridge the old mining track became visible.

 It contoured around and through the next upper chute through large pines and then into the larger ravine with the mine. The trail angled up to a broad bench and the twisted remains of several sheds and cabins. The adit and dump were at the start of the bench and ore cart rails pointed out into empty sky. I trudged along the old road. Suddenly I spied a horse shoe that seemed unusual. Stooping I picked up the small and sturdy rusted shoe. I smiled as I thought of the burro that must have made so many trips along this path losing a shoe on one of them.

Picking my way slowly through the debris strewn about the bench top I stepped into the cabin. The roof had fallen in but still protected the back wall. A table and coffee pot sat on the floor and scattered newsprint that once papered the walls of this room remained on the back wall. 1907 headlines from Philadelphia could be read on the torn remains of the paper that must have kept the winds at bay in this cozy little room. Many mining cabins remain across the west but very rarely are they as remote as this one with some small treasures still intact.
Now the place is still but for the winds with their whispering voices. So much labor went into these little mines. The miners traveled difficult and great distances facing hardship and loneliness that we can scare imagine. This spot is still a hard days climb from Silverton which itself remains remote and time consuming to get too from the outside world.