Zip line tours offer an elevated perspective

Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to be a bird? To flit from treetop to treetop, looking down on the landscape, soaring around in the mountains? Well, you can experience it yourself by taking a zip line tour.

Aerial cables as a mode of transportation in the mountains have been around for a couple thousand years, but zip line or canopy tours for recreation are fairly new. Canopy tours originated in Costa Rica, where wildlife biologists set up zip lines in the 1970s to study the rainforest ecology. Costa Rica patented the first recreational zip line system in 1998, and eventually the trend caught on in the United States.

Pump the adrenaline at Durango Adventures

Durango Adventures owner Stefan Van der Steen was a business consultant before he made the leap of faith from the corporate world to the outdoor adventure world. Initially he was just in the business of guiding hiking and mountain biking, but in 2011 he took another big step off the platform into zip lining. “That made adventures more accessible to people, and we’ve been pretty successful since then.”

Durango Adventures has other activities—off-road tours, whitewater rafting, even axe throwing (after a year of pandemic restrictions, it’s a great way to work out frustration, says Van der Steen) but its star attraction is the zip line operation.

It’s an impressive setup, encompassing twelve zip lines and a forty-five-foot adventure tower with different climbing elements including a freefall feature. Located in a natural setting, guests hike to the top of the park to start. The first half of the spans are shorter tree-to-tree routes to let people get comfortable and enjoy the views of Durango and the mountains. “The last part of the adventure, the last five or six, are more ‘adrenaline’ zip lines. Once people are used to the feel of the lines and the harness, they’re longer and faster…more speed,” says Van der Steen.

The pièce de résistance is the adventure tower, which is the finale of the tour but can also be accessed separately with the “Hour on the Tower” package. It is forty-five feet high, made of steel, with a rope ladder and netting. From the top of the tower, visitors can step off the platform and experience a free fall before the auto belay device catches them for a slow rappel to the ground.

The free fall is not mandatory—guests can instead opt to take one last zip line that spans over the parking lot and lands on the roof of the office building. “It’s pretty cool; there’s a waiting area with couches. It’s fun for groups, kind of like a rooftop patio. They land right there. It’s fun to see somebody landing on top of a building.”

The operation is open year-round, and Van der Steen prides himself on taking care of his employees, making guiding a real profession and not just a passion by paying them well and giving them work that is not seasonal. “That was one of my goals coming from the corporate world. Our guides are not just hired for the summer, and they’re not living in a van by the river. It’s a full-time, year-round career opportunity where they can make a living and start a family.”

His other goal? Sharing the stoke with his customers. “For me it’s always been a passion to try to get people outdoors, and to make the outdoors accessible for just about everybody. People are timid and skeptical sometimes…to watch them progress and go outside of their comfort zone is very rewarding, not only for the customers, but also for the guides and for me as an owner. I’d like to think that we make people appreciate the outdoors a little more.”

The great escape:Soaring Tree Top Adventures

If the COVID-19 pandemic taught us anything, it’s the value of escaping the grind and spending time immersed in nature. Quarantines and crowds drove us away from urban centers and into the freedom of being in the wild expanse of the outdoors.

Remote places held a new kind of allure; and places like Soaring Tree Top Adventures were in even higher demand.

Soaring Tree Top Adventures sits on 180 acres surrounded by the San Juan National Forest. It used to be the Tall Timber resort, but in 2004 it became the first zip line operation in the United States. It’s an adventure just to get to the former resort, which is only accessed by train or helicopter. And last summer, when the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad was shut down by the pandemic, there was a whole lot of helicopter traffic to the destination. “The resort began in the early 70s. Soaring was an add-on activity, an additional offering to the guests, but it took on a  life of its own. So we switched to accommodating guests who arrived by train, day guests, if you will. Zip lining was new, and nobody even knew what it was in the early 2000s,” says co-operator Dionne Beggrow.

Soaring Tree Top Adventures features twenty-seven spans ranging from fifty-six to 1,400 feet in length, including ten river crossings over the Animas River and two parallel spans of more than 600 feet, where people can race each other. Guests begin in the learning center, in a building with multiple stories, start with shorter spans to get accustomed, and the day ends with the 1,400-foot span.

The patented system they use is unique, relying on the rise and run of the cables to slow people down before they come into the next platform—no braking necessary—and are greeted by the Sky Rangers, Soaring’s zip line guides, who also help them set off on the next leg of the adventure. The system has allowed them to accommodate guests age four all the way up to ninety-four. “You don’t have to control your own speed; you just hold on and have fun. The rangers do all the work,” says Beggrow.

The adventure lasts five and a half hours and includes a four-course, gourmet lunch. The focus is on the alpine setting, a beautiful old-growth forest, and the experience features an eco-tour interspersed throughout the course. “A lot of people describe it as really exhilarating. You’re in this pristine forest, and you can experience it in a different way. It’s such a smooth, free feeling.”

That feeling is owing in part to the system’s construction: the platforms and lines are built with helicopter-grade, stainless  metal that is smoother than a standard cable, explains Beggrow, and guests ride in custom Petzl harnesses. So it’s also a quieter experience; the sound of travel over a standard hewn cable is why it is called “zip” lining.

Beggrow says that they adopted COVID protocols early and were able to accommodate groups and guests who helicoptered in last summer, and this year, with the train operating again, they have created a special VIP Private Tour package including transportation for groups of up to twenty people. “We get lots  of return guests, even grandparents bringing their grandkids, family reunions, groups of friends,”  says Beggrow. It is not just an adventure, but a sanctuary, a true wilderness escape. “It’s stress-free being here, away from all the busy places and tension.”

Get high with Telluride Canopy Adventures

Telluride didn’t invent the art of adventure, but it has certainly taken it to the next level. The destination is renowned for its bold experiences: climbing Wilson Peak, braving the sheer wall on the Via Ferrata, skiing the resort’s steep mountain chutes, or downhill mountain biking on its thrilling Mountain Bike Park Trails.

The Telluride Canopy Adventures are the newest option. Constructed for a summer 2020 opening but delayed by the pandemic, the trips are now open for visitors in 2021. Director of Mountain Operations Scott Pittenger says the opening is just in time. “We saw the increased desire for outdoor recreation opportunities and wanted to diversify our offerings with the canopy adventure. This is a really incredible experience that we think fits our market. It engages people in our natural environment and we’re proud to be stewards of it,” says Pittenger. “It’s a really rad adventure.”

The canopy excursions are suited to active participants. The route is comprised of five spans, two rappels, two sky bridges,  and a short hike. The longest span is 1,800 feet and the course traverses gullies and bounces from ridge to ridge, high above the ground, anywhere from forty-four to 208 feet up. Guests travel at speeds between ten and forty miles per hour, depending on the length of the span and the person—it’s a self-braking system with fail-safe backups, so guests can take it fast or slow and still be protected.

The trip starts with a ride up Lift 4, and a training assessment and gear introduction by the guides—each group has a lead and a tail guide. Anyone under  the age of fifteen must be accompanied by an adult, and riders need to weigh a minimum of seventy pounds, enough mass to make it through the zips, says Pittenger. They should also be comfortable with heights—although every step is secure. Guests are hooked in by guides for the rappels, and clipped into a cable for the traverse across the wood sky bridges, so they can hold on with both hands as they walk from tower to tower. After the trip, they get a ride back down in a side-by-side four-wheeler. “If you’re comfortable riding on a lift, you’re going to be comfortable riding on a canopy adventure. But you’re just so immersed in the experience you hardly notice how high you are. It’s a safe feeling when you are rigged in to the zip, a sense of security so you can enjoy the experience,” says Pittenger.

That’s the point, after all—to experience the scenery in a unique way. “We’re famous for our natural beauty and dramatic landscape. Hiking, you’re engaging on the ground level. With the canopy adventures, you’re up at the top of the tree level. You can look down, but also look above treeline and take in the expanse of our landscape. You can get a cool perspective on where you are in this world and how special and unique Telluride is.”

Local writer and director film TV pilot in Montezuma County

It’s not too unusual for the television and film industry to seek out locations in the West, but that wasn’t the case with this project. “Badwater” is actually a product of its setting, as the co-producers—writer Chuck Greaves and director Félix Alcalá—both reside in Montezuma County.

The two were introduced by a mutual friend in 2019 and had an immediate connection. “We really hit it off,” said Greaves, “and we hatched the idea of trying to do something together. I wrote a treatment for a TV series about a fictional town (Badwater) that we could film in Cortez and Mancos. It’s sort of a neo-Western crime/noir drama.”

Greaves and Alcalá make a formidable team. Greaves is a screenwriter and the author of six novels, including Tom & Lucky, which was a Wall Street Journal “Best Books of 2015” selection and a finalist for the 2016 Harper Lee Prize—and he has been a finalist for most of the major awards for crime fiction, as well as the New Mexico-Arizona, Oklahoma, and Colorado Book Awards.

Alcalá is a director, producer, and cinematographer whose television credits include episodes of ER, Third Watch, The Shield, Criminal Minds, Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, The Good Wife, SouthLAnd, Blue Bloods, The Good Fight, and Madam Secretary.  He is a recipient of the 2001 ALMA Award for Outstanding Director of a Drama Series and has been nominated for the Primetime Emmy, ALMA, ASC, DGA, and Hugo Awards for his directorial work.

Developing a series typically means partnering with a production company and a studio—this brings money to the project, but it can also dilute creative control for the writer or director. Greaves and Alcalá took an alternate route: They raised over $600,000 in investment capital, took advantage of Colorado’s film incentive rebate program, and filmed the pilot episode themselves in Montezuma County in October 2020. Once post-production is finished, they will shop it directly to distributors. “It’s very unusual, but that’s what we decided to do,” said Greaves. “If we succeed, it will provide a tremendous economic stimulus for the community.”

One of the main goals for “Badwater” is to benefit the community. The narrative pays homage to the diversity of the culture in this region—it begins with the disappearance of a local Native American school girl, and the main characters include a sheriff, county commissioners, a judge, a Latino DA, an Indigenous rights activist, and a news reporter. The production also provided work for many people in the community. “The only casting we did in L.A. were the starring roles. We held an open casting call in Mancos in July, where we auditioned for smaller roles,” said Greaves. “We had six locals in speaking parts and more than 100 background actors, plus a lot of the crew—camera operators and assistants were local; more than fifty percent of our cast and crew were Colorado residents.”

Filming during a pandemic presented its own set of challenges. The SAG (Screen Actors Guild) guidelines were very stringent—522 COVID-19 tests were conducted, sets were closed, temperatures were taken every morning, everyone wore color-coded wristbands, and N95 and surgical masks were used except during the actual shooting.

When the show does get picked up, it will feel very familiar to local viewers. Although some of the Ute reservation lands were closed due to the pandemic, the producers were able to find similar spots to film, and got permission to shoot in the Montezuma County Courthouse, the Columbine Bar in Mancos, the Mancos High School, and the Angel’s End Zone sports bar in Cortez. Ideally, the pilot will turn into a series and provide hundreds of jobs for locals.

Eventually Greaves and Alcalá hope to incorporate an educational element to train local people interested in the industry. The intent of the project was to give something back to the community, and the pair was humbled by the way the project was embraced locally. “The whole community was supportive,” said Greaves. “It was an amazing process.”

Heritage orchards identify and propagate rare apple trees

The Colorado Orange isn’t an orange at all…it’s a remarkable type of apple, a late-ripening golden yellow fruit with a reddish blush and a hint of citrus flavor. And if it weren’t for the efforts of orchardists like Jude and Addie Schuenemeyer, the Colorado Orange and other rare apple varieties might have been lost forever.

The Colorado Orange tree originated in the historic Fremont County orchard planted in the 1860s by Jesse Frazier, the first successful apple grower in the Colorado Territory. The Colorado Orange, nearly forgotten today, was popular and well-known in its heyday. It was featured in catalogs and even sent along in boxes of the state’s finest apples to President Teddy Roosevelt in 1905. And in 2018, there was only one known Colorado Orange tree left.

Jude Schuenemeyer says that the Colorado Orange is not the only endangered strain of apple in the state with an interesting story. He and his wife have found many “unique unknowns,” varieties with just one or two trees left that they send to a lab for DNA testing. The Schuenemeyers co-direct the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project (MORP), and they are rescuing these rare trees in a cluster of heritage orchards in their care in Montezuma County. “Our mission is to work to preserve Colorado’s fruit growing heritage,” said Jude Schuenemeyer.

Fruits of Their Labor

The Dolores Community Heritage Orchard is the latest MORP project. The Town of Dolores dedicated an acre of land in its Joe Rowell park to MORP to develop the orchard, and last fall MORP planted a mix of various rare and endangered trees including varieties with no DNA match. This year, thanks to a Colorado Garden Foundation grant, there will be interpretive signs and an app so that visitors can learn about each variety and its historic ties to the region. “The goal is that this orchard works as an economic development tool, a classroom for the people in the county,” said Schuenemeyer. “There’s a lot of fruit in Dolores that hits the ground. We’d like to see the orchard be a community resource demonstrating harvest and market opportunities to solve the waste problem and the bear problem.”

He also said he hopes the orchard will not just teach people about the history of the apple trees, but also invigorate the fruit industry, helping make people aware of the local “you-pick” orchards, cider tastings, and farm stands. “We’re so psyched…we’ve tried to do this for years.”

Cultivating Skills

The Schuenemeyers bought their own orchard in beautiful McElmo Canyon seventeen years ago. Previously, the couple worked on wildfire hotshot crews. They were always in the business of rescuing trees, but instead of saving them from burning, now they are preserving them in a different way. “Now it’s grafting instead of a drip torch,” laughs Schuenemeyer.

They were also able to lease and nurture a nearby Historic Gold Medal orchard that with MORP’s help was listed as a Colorado endangered place in 2018, the first cultural landscape to receive that listing. “That was our first genetic bank.”

The couple learned grafting, pruning, planting, harvesting, and how to care for the land and the trees. They also realized that it wasn’t just the rare trees that needed to be preserved but also the disappearing craft of how to cultivate them. They embarked on an ambitious initiative, collaborating with the Montezuma School to Farm Project, planting eight small orchards at local schools and teaching students and other groups to nurture the trees. They used USDA specialty crop funding to graft and grow the trees, and the programs have been a success. “The trees are big enough to teach kids to prune. We also show them grafting. The kids love it; they just light up with it, and they learn so much.”

The educational piece means that MORP is harvesting a whole new crop of people who have the expertise to grow and care for trees. “We’re going to have a generation of kids growing up knowing how orchards work and how to work in them,” said Schuenemeyer. “We teach classes all around the region, trying to re-instill these skills so that people have the skills to do it. Colorado is close to losing its apple economy…we need to hold on to this industry or we will lose it.”

Staying in style in mountain huts and lodges…

Lance Sullins, the owner of Peak Mountain Guides, stands in front of a wall covered with green topographic maps of the San Juan Mountains. He is eyeing the small red marks, each one indicating the location of a mountain lodge or hut. He traces his finger slowly over the landscape between the red points, imagining the routes that connect them and the adventures that lay in between.

Each year, more lodges and huts are being built, making backcountry travel more accessible and enabling people to bike, hike, climb, and ski without having to carry camping equipment and food. Backcountry lodging makes it possible for people to venture further out into the wilderness and have multi-day trips, even in the winter. Sullins said that the difference between the San Juan Mountains and other ranges in Colorado is the breadth of the terrain. “There’s not one route through the San Juans here. There are so many options, and there is an infinite number of variables,” said Sullins.

Joe Ryan had the vision of linking backcountry travel in 1987 when he built the San Juan Hut system, a series of five cabins stretched along the Sneffels range in the northern San Juan Mountains: Last Dollar, Burn, Ridgway, North Pole, and Blue Lakes huts. Ryan stayed in huts when was a climbing and skiing guide in Canada in the 70s and he imagined creating a multi-day ski touring route here. He remembers living on Hastings Mesa and driving a backhoe down county roads into Ouray at a slow clip, eyeing the terrain above, when he had an epiphany. “I thought, this is it. This is where I gotta build it. This is where it will work.”

Ryan’s San Juan Huts are rustic, simple cabins in remote locations. They provide sleeping bags, pads, wood stoves, cook stoves, propane or solar lights, pots, pans, and utensils. Each hut has a water source—a spring or a stream—nearby, but guests typically haul in their own food and use maps, descriptions of the routes, and GPS points to navigate to and between the cabins. They connect to some of the most breathtaking spots in the high country, says Ryan. “I like the day trek from North Pole to Blue Lakes. It’s close to the mountains, and really spectacular. The view from Wilson Creek summit is one of the top five views in the state.”

The San Juan Huts were such a success that he built more: six huts that span from Telluride to Moab, and six huts that run from Durango to Moab, both meant for biking. Those routes both also have an alternate singletrack course for a more challenging mountain bike trip. “It’s really like four routes, with the singletrack,” says Ryan. “The mountain biking trips are quite busy.”

The South Side

Along the Red Mountain Pass corridor, between Silverton and Ouray, a host of new mountain lodges and cabins are springing up. The latest addition is the Red Mountain Alpine Lodge, a beautifully crafted, sophisticated building that accommodates twenty people. Red Mountain Alpine Lodge is perhaps the most luxurious of the backcountry cabins—it has running water, hot showers, food and drink service, and is entirely off-grid with solar power and propane heat. There are games, puzzles, a dart board, a barbecue, and all the amenities—even Wi-Fi—although the real trappings are the peaks and trails surrounding the lodge.  “The space has such good energy,” says director Andrea luppenlatz. “It’s got a wood stove in the living room, a communal dining room table. We do have all the amenities, but it’s still the quintessential hut experience, with good vibes and people exchanging emails and phone numbers at the end of their trip.”

Best of all is the fact that the lodge is just 300 yards from Highway 550. That doesn’t just make it easy to keep the lodge stocked, it also makes access possible for even the casual adventurer. Despite its proximity to the road, Red Mountain Alpine Lodge is still secluded and visitors can’t see or hear traffic. “The location gives people access to the backcountry who might not have been able to experience it before,” says San Juan Mountain Guide Sheldon Kerr. “Grandma can come up with you and have breakfast and dinner and you can go hike or mountain bike.”

Red Mountain Alpine Lodge is the new kid on the proverbial block, having just opened last December, but there is a proliferation of existing huts along the corridor and in the high country above: Opus and Thelma huts, which were built fairly recently, along with St. Paul lodge and the Mountain Belle, Addie S, and Artist cabins. Local guides like Kerr are eager to take people on multi-day adventures and traverse the high country. “Now that there are more huts, the possibility of hut-to-hut travel is exciting,” says Kerr. “You could travel from Red Mountain Alpine Lodge, hike up Ohio Peak, and head to the Opus Hut. It’s a big day, but because you don’t have to carry an overnight kit, it suddenly becomes doable.”

The Opus Hut offers some of the more remote backcountry lodging on the south side, but it’s still one of the most well-appointed and comfortable cabins. Opus owner Bob Kingsley, who also manages the Thelma hut, says that guests appreciate the conveniences—a sauna, running water, and especially the indoor bathrooms. “It’s a little more comfortable than some huts, but it’s definitely not fancy. It sleeps sixteen people and is furnished with comforters and blankets. We also serve food and liquor, and people really dig that.”

Taking the High Road

Smack dab in the middle of the huts on the north side and the south side of the San Juans, in the high country above Ouray, sits the Mount Hayden Backcountry Lodge.

The Hayden is a rustic log cabin built in the 80s which is being renovated by Eric Johnson. Johnson added solar power and developed the onsite spring for conventional plumbing, and is working on an 1,800-square-foot addition this year. The lodge’s amenities will include a hot tub, sauna, shower, food, and a full bar.

The Hayden’s location is the missing link for local guides pursuing a haute route like the one in Chamonix that connects backcountry lodging via the high country terrain. Linking the north and south is sort of the holy grail, the ultimate goal, says Kingsley. Traveling in winter, the Hayden is anywhere from three to six hours from the accommodations along Red Mountain Pass, and a day trip on foot in the summer to the Opus Hut. Guests can also go over Blue Lakes pass and hook up to the San Juan Huts. “Mount Hayden Backcountry Lodge is located in the spectacular and pristine Richmond Basin,” says Johnson. “It will be an integral connection for the San Juan haute route.”

Sullins and his Peak Mountain Guides partner, Keith Garvey, pieced together a local haute route ski tour this winter that crosses the San Juan Mountains and also uses lift access at the Telluride Ski Resort. Sullins says that because of the avalanche danger and extreme terrain, it’s more of a mountaineering objective, an adventure, than it is about finding good snow to ski. He says that Garvey was the visionary behind the route. “He never liked driving shuttle,” laughs Sullins.

It was European hut systems such as the haute route that first inspired Kingsley to build the Opus, which he did himself between 2005 and 2010, after spending time abroad and as a mountaineering guide. He’s excited to welcome ultrarunners, skiers, and hard core adventurers that want to travel in style with minimal gear. “It’s always been a goal of mine to try and create a string of full-service huts where you can travel light between places, and it’s starting to happen,” he says. “I love turning people on to the wilderness and showing people they can do it in comfort.”

Get a taste of Southwest Colorado’s crafted beverages.

Towering vines of hops. Luscious, tender grapes. Perfectly crisp apples. Cold, fresh Rocky Mountain water. Southwest Colorado has all the right ingredients for craft beverage makers, and visitors can drink it all in and get a taste of what makes this region unique. The Durango Area Tourism Office is celebrating these artisans with a mapped tour that showcases all the hot spots where you can grab a cold drink. Here are some of the highlights:

Hop to It

There has been something of a boom over the past decade or so in the hops industry in the southwest part of the state. Select varieties of the plants thrive in the sunny, temperate climate and high altitude environment. Hops grow wild here—you will find them climbing up warm canyon walls and creeping up the side of historic houses in some of the towns. Hops have also become a favorite of the local agricultural scene. Not only is it a natural match for the growing conditions, it’s also a perfect fit in a place where there are a multitude of craft breweries hoping to source their ingredients locally. Brewers use a technique called “hop bursting,” adding hops in the final stages of boiling to add intense hops flavor and aroma to an IPA beer. If you’re looking for a delicious IPA, try Ska Brewing’s Modus Hoperandi.

Fresh off the Vine

Napa Valley has nothing on McElmo Canyon. This gorgeous, red rock canyon is a mini oasis nestled between the mountains and the desert, just warm and wet enough to grow the most prized grape varietals. Some enterprising vintners have recognized the potential and are cultivating grapes and handcrafting fine wines. No beverage tour would be complete without a stop at one of the tasting rooms for the local wineries. Tip for tourists: Sutcliffe Vineyards is one of the most renowned winemakers in the country—they have multiple 90+ point reviews and have been named one of the top 500 wine producers in the United States. Try the 2014 Bodysgallen, a smooth Bordeaux.

Treetop Sweetness

Just outside of Dolores, there is a heritage orchard called the T Lazy T. Martha and Dusty Teal bought the abandoned farm and land and apple trees in 2010, nursing the orchard back to health until the trees were thriving and producing fruit again. They grow the heirloom apples, pick them by hand, press them, and ferment them slowly—for months—on site. The T Lazy T Orchard is the home of Teal Cider, and it’s the region’s only licensed craft cidery. There is a rustic barn that holds a tasting room for the boutique cider beverages.

Perfectly Distilled

Regional distilleries have a host of special local ingredients that give their spirits unique accents. The glacial Rocky Mountain water from the high mountains in the area provides the base, but distillers are also lucky to have locally grown barley and blue corn, and wild Juniper berries that flourish in the subalpine climate. The Honey House Distillery in Durango also sources their small-batch, handcrafted honey spirits from their own in-house Honeyville Widlflower Honey—straight from the bees to your bourbon glass. We recommend you sample the Colorado Honey Whiskey, a subtly sweet, slightly smoky blend of two premium aged bourbons.

Special Sodas

Southwestern Colorado is also home to some handcrafted non-alcoholic beverages. Durango is the headquarters for Zuberfizz, a soda company that uses pure cane sugar to create small batches of creative carbonated drinks, with flavors like Vanilla Cream, Strawberry Rhubarb, and even Key Lime. The local brew pub, Carver Brewing Co., also makes a special root beer.

Check out the Durango Area Tourism Organization website at Durango.org, where you can download a map, find more than 30 independent producers of crafted beverages along the San Juan Skyway, and create a tasting itinerary. There are also hosted tours available to book. Bottoms up!