This weekend, the town of Telluride will host its despite unseasonably warm temperatures and a dearth of snow in the forecast.
The event will take over Colorado Avenue, the town’s main thoroughfare, for two days in hopes that it can both honor Telluride’s Western heritage and raise local spirits after a trying start to the year, said event director Ashley Von Spreecken. In addition to experiencing an uncharacteristically warm and dry winter, Telluride has been reeling from a 13-day ski patrol strike and ski resort closure, which pushed the local economy and community to a near-crisis.
That’s why it was important to Von Spreecken to make the event free to attend and organize it in downtown, so that local businesses could get a boost in foot traffic.
“It was kind of like a little bit of a dark cloud of Telluride this year,” said Von Spreecken, who also sits on Telluride Town Council and owns adventure company. “This hopefully will be a bright spot.”
Skijoring is said to have originated in Scandinavia, where residents rode the historic equivalent of skis and were pulled by horses as a means of transportation. Today, these events resemble a winterized version of a rodeo in which horse-drawn skiers and snowboarders race across a course featuring obstacles like jumps and gates. One Western Slope competition organizer described it as “the most fun you can have with your pants on.”
races take place Saturday (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and Sunday (10 a.m. to 2 p.m.), with awards handed out thereafter to close out each day. On Saturday, there also will be a “best dressed in the West” costume competition, and businesses in town are expected to be throwing special events to entertain spectators throughout the day. Dogs are prohibited from the skijoring grounds as a safety measure to avoid conflicts with the horses.
Typically, skijoring courses are built entirely of snow. But because of the spring-like weather and limited snowfall this season, Von Spreecken and event producer Jereb Carter are making a few adjustments to ensure both riders and horses are as safe as possible.
Instead of covering all of Colorado Avenue with snow, Von Spreecken expects to use the limited amount available to build a route for skiers and snowboarders. The town of Telluride has been collecting fallen snow after storms, she said, and storing it in various spots in hopes it doesn’t melt. A pile of snow located in a shady parking lot at the west end of town has remained mostly intact, Von Spreecken said.
For the horses’ path, the plan is to create an artificial track with plastic “geomesh” covered in sand, so the animals aren’t running directly on asphalt, Von Spreecken said. The rest of the street will be bare and utilized as a walking area for skijoring teams.
Additionally, the course is not expected to be super technical or have large jumps that could put equine and human participants at risk. “We are 100% here to put a smile on people’s faces,” Von Spreecken said. She is hopeful that by being strategic, Telluride Skijoring will be a success in its first year. But if conditions deteriorate, she is prepared to call off the competition.
“The reality is we still might do all of this and partway through the competition, the snow has melted too much and the conditions have degraded and we don’t think it’s safe anymore, and we’ll just shut it down and have a party,” Von Spreecken said.
She wouldn’t be the first to do so this season. On March 1, organizers in midway through the weekend’s festivities, after warm temperatures impacted the integrity of the course. The cancellation came after when his horse veered off course and stumbled in snow during a run, Ski-Hi News reported. Gregory underwent surgery in Denver for a shattered pelvis, account set up to assist him and his family while he is out of work recovering.
However the weekend works out, Von Spreecken expects Telluride Skijoring to become a mainstay on the winter events calendar and another reason for people to visit in the winter months.
“If we can pull it off this year, we’ll be able to pull it off any other year going forward,” she said.
