Across the nation, some downtowns are so silent you can hear the clatter of your own feet. The economy has slumped and businesses and homes have shuttered their doors.
Walking through Telluride these days, you might think much the same is happening here. Everyone has fled. There are two restaurants, one bar and one coffee shop open.
My husband, Andy, and daughter, Siri, and I walk Main Street, all six blocks of it, and see just two people.
Down the center of Main Street, there’s an enormous gash stretching for two blocks. Bolts and hammers are scattered everywhere, but there isn’t a construction worker in sight.
In the distance, lone dogs howl and roam the streets. Maybe their owners have left them free to wander for the month, maybe they’ve broken free from their hired care.
Each April, May and, to a lesser degree, October is off-season in Telluride, when the ski mountain closes, the town evacuates, and the dog count is higher than the number of people in town.
It’s a desolate time. The wind howls, the trees are bare, and the snow continues to fall. The trails are covered in snow and mud. And there is nothing to do, except stroll to the post office and pick up your mail and stroll back again. If you’re lucky, you see someone.
Usually, I love this town. I love the sound of the river. I love that the whole town lines up at 7:30 a.m. at the base of the mountain on a powder day, no matter how late they were out the night before. I love that, on a summer day, you can climb in any direction out of town and lose yourself among the trails.
But during off-season, it sometimes feels like living in a grave.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be so harsh. In many ways, those months give me a glimpse of what it must have been like to watch mining collapse here and in other towns in the West. I feel grateful that I get to live here, now, at this point in history.
What must it have been like to watch the town empty almost overnight? To lose jobs and friends? Which business shut its doors last? The grocery store? The dance hall? Did anyone bother to lock the doors?
In some ghost towns, people left so quickly that the remains of their daily life are posed like a still life. A pair of glasses rests on an open accounting book. A truck sits at a gas pump where a sign lists the price of gas at 35 1/2 cents per gallon.
It’s as if the whole town is just waiting for the art teacher to clap her hands and let life resume: “End of that pose, class. Move on, everyone.”
Except that there is no moving on. Everything remains that way. A terminal state of frozen vigor. A Pompeii.
Yet mining towns are destined to fail. They have a finite amount of resources and when those resources dwindle, the town shuts down. Are ski towns the same? Previously, towns like Telluride seemed indestructible, their resources infinite. But what about global warming? Will the snow continue to fall? And even if it does, will the skiers continue to come in this pulseless economy?
Andy and I often wish we had moved to this town in the ’80s, when the streets were dirt and the houses cheap. Even now, and for all of my criticisms of Telluride — namely excess wealth and a lack of diversity — there is so much that is right about it. Neighbors bring cakes to one another and swap babysitting. Trails are clean and boundless. Children can walk home from friends’ houses after dark.
I would hate to see all of that vanish, to contemplate future historians strolling amid our remnants. What would they think of our abandoned junk? The rows of skis outside of everyone’s homes? The cruiser bikes? The drained hot tubs? They’d wouldn’t hear the bluegrass music streaming out of the park or see friends hugging each other on Main Street. They’d miss out on all of the town’s energy.
Let’s hope that day never comes. Off-season reminds us to appreciate now and to protect the future. To bike instead of drive. To compost. And to celebrate the usual vitality of Main Street businesses rather than to complain about the high prices.
In the face of all that is crumbling around us, we’re lucky to have this could-be ghost town still around.
Emily Brendler Shoff (ebshoff@gmail.com) teaches and writes in Telluride.
