COVID course detours some into the pain cave

by Than Acuff

There’s no question the new course tacked on a bit more for some, and a lot more for others, at the 2020 North Face Grand Traverse Mountain Run and Bike Saturday and Sunday, September 5-6. Cam Smith and Jenny Smith managed to defend the home trails in the men’s run and women’s mountain bike races, respectively, with Billy Laird winning the Dual Sport title, running one day and biking the next. But a host of out-of-towners took titles in the women’s run, men’s bike and women’s Dual Sport races.

On paper, the new course for the 2020 North Face Grand Traverse Mountain Run and Bike was longer with more vertical gain so it was a relative unknown how it would play out when the rubber hit the trail.

Before the onset of COVID, the mountain run race always started in Crested Butte and finished in Aspen and the mountain bike race started in Aspen the next day and returned to Crested Butte and both races came in around 41 miles.

But COVID protocols in Pitkin County, where Aspen sits, prevented the race from getting over the Elk Mountains to Glitter Gulch and race organizers came up with a new course, all within Gunnison County. The new course upped the ante significantly for athletes, coming in around 48 miles long with between 7,800 and 8,500 feet of vertical gain.

Athletes and organizers got a sense for the enormity of the course, and the effect of the daytime heat, on Saturday as 193 runners headed out in waves at 5:50 a.m. with 160 finishing, the last runner crossing the finish around 8:30 p.m.

Cam won with a time of seven hours and three minutes, noticeably drained by the effort as he ran into issues three hours into his seven-hour tour.

“I had a tough day,” says Cam. “I started having foot and knee pain and started getting blisters two to three hours into the race. I thought I’d work my way through it but it just got worse and worse.”

Cam kept on moving though, all alone out front with no idea where the closest competitor was or what his time was compared to other runners.

“I don’t know what possessed me to keep going. I just know I hate quitting things,” says Cam. “I knew I was ahead but didn’t know how far ahead. I just knew I didn’t want to get to the finish line to learn I had lost by a second.”

The effort paid off as it turned out, when Nick Coury crossed a couple of minutes later but times showed he was just two seconds shy of Cam in the end.

“I was having a bad day but you just got to work your way through it,” says Cam.

The women’s side was far less contested as Nicole Mericle, 2018 Spartan Race World Champion in her first ultra marathon, won the women’s race by a margin of 38 minutes and fast enough to finish in fifth place among all racers, men and women.

Sunday morning 119 mountain bikers lined up in Crested Butte to follow the course in the opposite direction connecting Brush Creek to Cement Creek only to come back over to Brush Creek via Star Pass, eventually turning onto Upper Upper Loop to finish in Mt. Crested Butte.

Thanks to a grant from the Mt. Crested Butte admissions tax there was $5,700 in prize money on the line and the payout for both men and women was six deep, bringing in some heavy hitters from both in and out of the valley.

Case in point, Russell Finsterwald out of Colorado Springs, Colo. Finsterwald is a five-time national champion in a variety of disciplines, most notably on his bike. Finsterwald took the men’s bike title, finishing the course in a time of four hours and 10 minutes and 10 minutes ahead of second place. The next four finishers all came to the race with impressive bike racing resumes. Brian Smith was the lone local man to finish in the money, placing sixth.

Yet, among the 95 men who did finish, with the last rider crossing nine hours and 17 minutes later and showered in Champagne by his friends, there was also 14-year-old Andrew Morris from Ft. Collins. Morris raced with his father to end up in 28th place, posting a remarkable time of 5 hours and 50 minutes.

Ultimately, it was up to the local women to bring a strong showing to the bike race, with three finishing in the money. They were led by Jenny Smith, who brought home the title, her third Grand Traverse bike title, with a relatively pain-free time of five hours and 30 minutes.

“I had never done a race in the Cement Creek area and I had never done the Waterfall Cutoff before so that was super cool,” says Jenny.

She admits that the climb up Crystal Peak trail was arduous but earlier in the summer she had taken some u19 DEVO bike girls that way on an adventure ride so she couldn’t crack there.

“I figured I had 14-year-old girls on that trail and they didn’t complain, so I couldn’t,” says Jenny.

About her only concern was mechanical as the creek crossings added some stress to her bike.

“I was scared that my chain would break,” says Jenny.

In the end, Jenny was appreciative of the COVID course.

“I thought the course was awesome and I liked the fact that it included the trails in Crested Butte South area,” says Jenny. “It’s a ton of climbing to put in a 50-mile race. Massive kudos to Andrew [Arell] for his perseverance to help move the race along.”

Jari Hiatt was the next local in third place and Emma Vosburg mashed her way to a payday, placing sixth.

“All things considered it was a successful weekend, even dodged the smoke,” says Crested Butte Nordic events director Andrew Arell. “But we will return to the original course as soon as we can. The Grand Traverse is intrinsically an event linking the two mountain communities.”

Adventure on Avery just one of many last weekend

by Mark Reaman

The influx of people to the nearby backcountry this summer did not immediately result in an increase in Search-and-Rescue missions around Crested Butte. At the end of July, Crested Butte Mountain Rescue Team (CBMRT) president Randy Felix said while the number of people in the backcountry was obviously up, the team was having an average or even below average year. That has taken a turn.

“We have had a recent flurry of activity,” Felix reported this week. And while some of it is becoming a normal occurrence, other incidents are a bit sketchier.

“We receive at least one call per week for overdue hikers hiking between Crested Butte and Aspen,” Felix said. “I am working with the Forest Service to help improve signage out there.”

In the “more interesting” category, Felix said an incident last weekend involved two couples in over their heads while climbing Avery Peak north of Gothic. On September 5, CBMRT responded to a call for four climbers stuck high up on the southwest face of Avery Peak Saturday evening.

“The climbers had cell service and were able to call for help and describe their situation,” Felix said. “A hasty team from CBMRT responded to assist the climbers. One of the couples was able to climb past the difficulties and reach lower-angle terrain and the ridge. They were met by the CBMRT hiking down the ridge into Virginia Basin.

“From GPS coordinates and visual inspection of the face, the remaining couple was spotted high up on the face,” Felix continued. “The team from CBMRT summited the peak and was able to make voice contact with the stuck couple. The couple was stuck on a small ledge with around 50 feet of steep terrain above them to where the steepness lessoned significantly. There was a layer of loose rock and sand prohibiting their perceived safe passage to the top. Members of CBMRT were able to lower down a couple of harnesses and safety rope. The couple was able to put on the harnesses, tie in and were belayed to the ridge where they descended without further incident with members of CBMRT.”

Felix said the Avery Peak mission was completed at 3:45 a.m. He emphasized that the southwest face of Avery Peak is steep and scrambly climbing on often loose and exposed rock with poor anchoring options. “A fall from the face would most likely be fatal,” he said. “It is a fun outing until it is not!”

The next day, the team received a call for the same area but in a much more busy place—a bike accident on Trail 401. “CBMRT and a paramedic from the Crested Butte Fire Protection District made contact with a female patient on 401,” said Felix. “She was flown out of the field with the assistance of CareFlight 4 out of Montrose due to the severity of her injuries.”

The CBMRT also had a lost hiker call near Ohio Pass and an overdue mountain biker riding from Crested Butte to Aspen, all over the Labor Day weekend. Both were eventually located.

Next up: hunting season. The good news is that Felix said “while hunting season is always a big question, we do not see the number of calls as we used to due to improvements in GPS technology and its widespread use.”

Arts Fest auction going through the weekend

The virtual 2020 Crested Butte Arts Festival kicked off on Friday, July 31 with a virtual silent auction of 65 featured artists’ works that will be online and available for bids through Sunday, August 9. Eighty percent of the proceeds from the “All in for the Arts” auction event will go back to support this year’s participating artists, five of whom are local to the Gunnison Valley. For more information and to view the artwork featured in this year’s Crested Butte Arts Festival “All in for the Arts” online auction, visit crestedbutteartsfestival.com.

WCU and GMUG to host Taylor Park field trip

Western Colorado University’s Center for Public Lands in partnership with the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forests’ Gunnison Ranger District will host its second annual public field trip for the Taylor Park Vegetation Management Project on Thursday, August 13. The field trip provides an opportunity for interested individuals to participate in discussions and engage with GMUG staff, adaptive management group members and science teams on topics including the implementation timeline, temporary roads, treatment unit prescriptions and resource concerns. This year’s trip will take place near the Ripley Timber Sale in the Bear Creek area off of Spring Creek Road from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. RSVP by August 10 at: www.centerforpubliclands.org/taylorparkfieldtrip. For questions, please contact Maddie Rehn, Center for Public Lands program manager, at (970) 943-2433; email mrehn@western.edu.

Street work

Crested Butte doesn’t want Mt. CB to have all the summer roadwork fun. So the town will begin some street slurry projects around CB on Monday, August 10. The slurry should add more life to some of the town streets. A portion of Red Lady Avenue will go a step further and get a one-inch asphalt overlay. Be aware that you may have to take a detour or two during the week.

CBMBA annual work weekend

Mark your calendars! CBMBA still has plans for the annual work weekend, allbeit a bit altered, as they continue their effort on the Phase 2 of the Middle Cement Creek trail Saturday and Sunday, August 15-16. It will be a burly task as they look to connect Waterfall Cutoff to Middle Cement and it’ll take some effort to get to the location, no to mention the work needed. For more information go to cbmba.org.

Don’t plant unknown seeds in the area

The Colorado Department of Agriculture has received numerous reports from across the state of people receiving unsolicited packages of seeds in the mail that appear to have originated from China and other countries and labeled as containing jewelry or other items. Unsolicited seeds could be invasive, could introduce diseases to local plants or could be harmful to livestock. Do not plant them. Anyone who receives an unsolicited package of seeds should immediately contact the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s Plant Industry Division at cda_nursery@state.co.us or at (303) 548-5333 or the APHIS state plant health director. Please hold onto the seeds and packaging in its original package safely, including the mailing label, until someone from the Colorado Department of Agriculture or APHIS contacts you with further instructions.

Birthdays:

August 6- Jeremiah Robinson, Marlene Stajduhar, Paul Merck, Steve Landry

August 7- Scott Meyers, Kelly Ward, Mara McLaughlin, Daniel Davenport, Carrie Jo Chernoff, Laura Cass

August 8- Beth Gallagher, Martha Walton, Gail Buford, Ruth Romer, Heather Talbot, Alexis Miller, John Wickett, Judy Williams,

August 9- Sky Houseman, Scott Millard, Happy Brown, Jan Washburn, Neil Windsor

August 10- Chris Gaither, Bruce Alpern

August 11- Amy Williams, Kathleen Ross, Steve Cook, Doug Kroft

August 12- Linda Priest, Mert Theaker, Jewel Millard, Spencer Madison

Cameos: What events have you missed the most this summer?

“We were going to have a heck of a winter and it still wasn’t that bad”

By Katherine Nettles

In a midyear Tourism and Prosperity Project (TAPP) review with the county on July 14, several members of the TAPP and the ICELab discussed the ongoing efforts for valley-wide economic recovery amid the coronavirus crisis, and efforts to continue a diverse range of economic growth as well.

Among the positives are several new or growing businesses related to the TAPP’s management of the ICELab entrepreneurial hub; collaborative projects like a new mountain biking film; and an overall sense of doing better than most tourism-based economies on the Western Slope during the pandemic.

However, the latest numbers show that sales tax revenue is down 6 percent from last year, TAPP executive director John Norton noted, as the tallies from May numbers came out on July 20.

Norton reviewed TAPP’s four  main goals of growing lodging revenues; supporting export-focused economic development (through ICELab); promoting Western Colorado University (WCU); and promoting sustainable tourism through the Sustainable Tourism and Outdoor Recreation committee.

“We are looking for projects that move across all of our goals,” Norton said. He named several such projects, including the gear review company Blister that relocated to the valley last year; a collaboration with Matchstick Productions on a mountain biking film (to be released in 2021); the start-up company Hustle Bike Labs in the process of moving to the Gunnison Valley; the TerraQuest trail app; and Campfire Ranch in Almont.

Norton said Hustle’s plans to move and launch from the Gunnison Valley are still in the works. “They are delayed because of trade issues with China,” he said, and due to complications from the coronavirus crisis.

Norton said TerraQuest, which hosts the CBG Trails and TrailQuest app, is employing many WCU staff and students for part-time and permanent positions.

“And Campfire Ranch is the newest addition,” he said, and having just opened up, “They are doing well so far.” He said Campfire Ranch is marketing particularly to younger, Front Range crowds who might otherwise go for the I-70 corridor.

COVID-19 fallout

“We were going to have a heck of a winter and it still wasn’t that bad,” said Norton of the abrupt end to the ski season and loss of Spring Break visitor revenue. He noted a 5 percent year-over-year increase from November to April, although the latest numbers show the county now has a 6 percent decline from last year with the May numbers factored in.

Summer got off to a slow start due to public health concerns, of course. “We waited one month later for our summer campaign launch, starting in May instead of April,” said Norton. “We are marketing to in-state visitors primarily.” He said an air marketing campaign is set for late summer and fall as well.

Overall, Norton said, “The Gunnison Valley is showing one of the strongest rebounds in our DestiMetrics set… We are hearing from several retailers that this is their best retail season ever.” He added that these retailers are successful under normal circumstances as well. DestiMetrics is a Denver-based company that “provides market intelligence solutions for the destination leisure travel industry.”

Norton and his team also reviewed the organization’s pandemic response, public information officers and business subgroups.

TAPP’s airline marketing consultant Jeff Moffat discussed the Arrivalist cell phone and media tracking software. “This allows us to see what marketing sites people are viewing while planning their trips at home, then what they do once here and how effective our messages are. It definitely took the guesswork out of planning new markets,” he said.

He also explained that WCU MBA candidate Seth Tucker measured backcountry visitation and some estimated economic impacts locally for his outdoor MBA capstone project.

“I think we’re going to find more uses for Arrivalist as time goes on,” said Norton.

Norton said Crested Butte Mountain Resort and TAPP have a similar voice in their marketing campaigns going forward, which will bring a more cohesive theme of what Crested Butte has to offer the world at large.

“I think it’s very helpful that there is no longer a mixed message on what the mountain is about and what the experience is about here,” he said.

ICELab

ICELab director David Assad gave an update on the ICELab organization. He provided some annual goals and metrics from 2019 showing the ICELab recruited one company; supported the creation of six jobs (with a goal of five); supported the creation of three jobs that pay more than $50,000 (with a goal of one); and supported revenue increases among its companies of $873,000 (with a goal of $200,000).

“We had a really great year in 2019 and we’re hoping to see the same for 2020,” he concluded.

Commissioner Jonathan Houck expressed overall appreciation for TAPP’s “nimbleness” during the past several months. “Everyone had to change course in mid-March… It’s been a time to scramble and be flexible and you’ve been a part of that as well,” he said. TAPP’s communications director, Andrew Sandstrom, was specially recognized for his work with the county’s industry groups.

The commissioners had some comments on industry groups and a few questions for TAPP.

Commissioner Roland Mason said there was confusion with the transition from the ICELab to the county with the dashboards used on the website. He also expressed concern about the need to move indoors again in the fall, and how that will present more challenges for businesses.

“I feel that we are going to need a smooth transition and maybe more clarity between TAPP and the county economic recovery team,” said Mason. “The subgroup was important and will be as important if not more in fall and winter.”

Mason also asked for financials on TAPP’s subgroup meetings and public information officers. Norton and Sandstrom said they can collect that information fairly easily; Sandstrom said the costs were primarily staff time, but also some equipment.

Assad estimated the cost at “tens of thousands, if not more.”

Houck spoke of the county‘s process of hiring a recovery specialist, which has since happened with Loren Ahonen, who began on July 27.

“There’s a recovery and there’s a whole level of maintenance to that,” he said.

“That’s one of the primary goals, having the communication between the different entities.”

Newly sworn-in commissioner Liz Smith asked about the Blister speaker series normally held in the fall and about the mountain sports program.

“If we’re unable to gather in an auditorium, [we] have suggested some outdoor spaces,” replied Norton. “We’ve got to make plans. We can’t plan nothing. But we have to know that some of our plans might not be viable.

“It could be a pretty weird year,” he acknowledged. “But we’ve got to be safe.”

Houck asked how to address reluctance from lodging businesses at the south end of the valley to participate with DestiMetrics, and Norton said it was a challenge.

“The north valley lodges … do a projection about two weeks out as a service to the restaurants so the restaurants can plan their food orders,” said Norton, and he suggested restaurants and lodges could very much benefit from this in the south end, and it would help them predict when to raise their rates.

Sandstrom said, “I have worked very hard to get more properties on board. And one major issue I’ve seen is they are all part of the Choice Hotels chain, so they are getting a lot of that same information there. The problem is we are not getting it, so that we can then share it with the restaurants.”

Houck also asked how to carry on the Catapult business accelerator program, even with the public health limitations.

“I want us to work toward recovering things that have worked for our community,” Houck said.

Norton said they are hopeful and working on it. “We want to see that economic opportunity continue. Making sure we are continuing to point TAPP in the direction that our community asked us to,” he said. Norton also expressed that he felt the decision to leave TAPP’s budget intact to support the recovery was “a good one.”

Cause and effect.

Karma.

I didn’t see it but it sounds like the unofficial after-party of the unofficial Chainless Race last Friday apparently felt like a street party in Rio during Carnival. I’m both sorry and glad I missed it.

Normally, for the Fourth of July issue I would write about the patriotism of peaceful protest, of the importance of voting or the wisdom and courage of the country’s founding fathers. All important topics but in 2020, things are not normal. No, we are living in interesting times and watching the ramifications of a deadly pandemic. That is simply not normal.

I don’t know about you but I’m getting a little tired of the “interesting” in these times. As I was walking around Elk Avenue this week it was obvious that many business owners are walking the edge. Being ordered to close their doors in the middle of March when spring breakers flood here to ski and spend money hamstrung our economy. If that pesky COVID-19 would have swept through the valley a few weeks later, the local economy might not have even noticed the virus. After all, that period of time from the end of March, through most of May is called “off-season” for a reason.

But the virus had no such manners and we got clobbered both economically and health-wise. Six of our friends and neighbors died from the virus. That woke us up. Several of our friends and neighbors caught a bad case of the bug and to this day are struggling with debilitating after-effects that have hobbled their healthy selves, without a timeline for complete recovery. That is scary.

Today we struggle with how to deal with the coronavirus that for the most part appears to be taking a nap. It may be napping but it is still there, as evidenced by a few positive test results that weren’t around a month ago. Meanwhile, tons of people are suddenly feeling symptoms and getting tested. Many might be having a hard time breathing because of allergies. Others might have a cough because of a summer cold. Everyone is watching as places that opened up before us, Texas and Florida for example, are dealing with a major resurgence of the virus. That probably adds to stress for many people here.

As the valley fills with visitors, striking the balance between stoking the economy and keeping our “at-risk” population safe is a tricky tightrope. County healthcare officials are doing a really good job of walking that tightrope. Keeping a close eye on numbers, the healthcare officials have worked to prepare for a real resurgence. They know how to expand hospital beds if needed. They developed a color-coded “Coronameter” to keep people informed of how close we are to being in the danger zone. At the same time they are supporting things like allowing a significant number of people outside (right now at 175 but asking the state for 250). There has no doubt been some action that would be done differently in hindsight (let’s not go to the infamous postcard) but for the most part, Gunnison County has been at the forefront of a successful mitigation of the COVID-19 crisis.

Which leads us to cause and effect; action and consequence; controlling destiny; karma.

While public health officials laid out the direction, it was the community that for the most part chose to go in that direction. The community deserves credit for where we are today as opposed to, say, in Houston, where ICU beds are almost all full this week. And while we at the end of the road don’t normally like to be told what to do, we are also not a community of fools. So when the logic of social distancing, masks for those who are able and better hygiene is explained we hop on it to protect not just ourselves and our families but our neighbors and the local businesses we appreciate.

While it appears the younger demographic is a tad less interested in social distancing (they are a younger demographic, after all), the community as a whole needs to not simply stop doing the good things that got us here. I like the openness and vitality the businesses are offering. I like seeing friends again for a cocktail. I like understanding that wearing a mask inside crowded places might help keep workers getting a paycheck.

Being human, we could not expect these measures to last forever. There will be slip-ups and there will be times we just choose to throw caution to the wind. The genuine smiles from those doing the Chainless last week were great. It was a blow off steam sort of thing. And having done the Chainless Race, there are few better events for social distancing—during the actual event. It is actually a quiet trip down Kebler with people extremely spread out for the most part. The pre-party? Not so much. The after-party? Definitely not. And while I was not there, the photos of Second and Elk show that social distancing was definitely not the norm Friday evening and the demographics were, shall we say, mixed.

So that is where our community actions and consequences come in. It is where we made a choice for our destiny. From what I read, being outside is a lot safer and has a greater impact on slowing the spread of the virus than being inside for a shoulder-to-shoulder concert or party. But it is not fail-safe. So a chunk of the community threw some caution to the wind before and after last Friday’s Chainless. I understand the attraction. We are all human and riding a bike in a clever costume with a locked chain down a mountain pass into the main street of town is our communal sort of Crested Butte’s human-ness. Hopefully our karma is such that we will see no corona consequence 10 days from now.

Look, I have no desire to play mean dad on this but most of us like our businesses having their doors open so they can generate revenue, so please stay socially distanced. Most of us like seeing kids romping in the playground and hope they can return to their physical classrooms in August, so please keep washing your hands. Most of us enjoy meeting friends in person rather than on a Zoom call, so please wear a mask if able. Now is not the time to throw all caution to the wind and go all Rio Carnival beach party. It remains the time to protect ourselves and our entire community. It’s hard. It also might keep a friend from literally dying. All actions have consequences. Karma happens here too. We will get what we deserve after all.

—Mark Reaman

“No one wants to go through this…”

By Mark Reaman

As the valley grapples with the safest way to reopen business, some locals are still dealing with the personal aftermath of contracting COVID-19. Here we share firsthand accounts of their experiences and how they continue to work on healing.

Dayna Christy

Dayna Christy is approaching the 70th day of dealing with the virus. Fifty-five of those days were spent with a fever. She is now in the “recovery phase” and she readily admits she has little energy. Dayna is 57 and a driver for Mountain Express, a gardener and a mom. She described herself as completely healthy and active before she caught the virus. She had none of the underlying conditions that experts warn can make the illness worse. In early March she came down with a headache. It was so bad she cancelled a ski outing with friends. The following day she went into work to drive the bus and had a little cough and a drippy nose. She was sent home.

It was that week that the virus started making headlines and the state reported there were 33 presumptive cases of the coronavirus in Colorado, with two positives in Gunnison County. Dayna crawled into bed that week and for the most part didn’t leave the bed for 25 days.

“It started with a really bad headache,” she explained. “Then a little cough. I was told to take a test and the EMTs came to the house in hazmat suits to test me in the garage. I waited six days for results and it came back positive. Once it hit me it was awful. I had a totally high fever for weeks. I was completely exhausted and dehydrated. I was too sick to get out of bed.

“Even now after two months I get completely exhausted walking around the yard or up the stairs,” Dayna continued. “Talking to people, especially on the phone, wears me out. It’s affected my eyes and I can’t see very well right now. It is horrible.”

At one point during the illness Dayna took a turn for the worse. A neighbor who is a doctor said she should go to the hospital immediately and insisted she not wait, so her husband got her to Gunnison Valley Hospital.

“They said if I hadn’t gone that day I probably wouldn’t have woken up the next day,” Dayna said. “It was horrible. But when you’re in this weird state of mind it’s like you’re on a different planet so I didn’t want to go. I figured I’d be better the next day, but never was.”

Dayna was put into isolation at GVH and treated. “I felt so bad for the nurses and healthcare workers,” she recalled. “Every time they came in they had to put on the protective gear. It’s not easy on them. They sent me home with a concentrator, which is an oxygen machine and a nebulizer. That has helped. But I can’t walk enough to go to the neighbor’s house. I’m able to get out of bed but I still can’t do anything and I’m coming out of day 65,” she said Monday.

The doctors have said she would likely heal quicker if she went lower in altitude. “I’m on oxygen and that helps,” Dayna said. “But I can’t just pack up and leave. I have a kid and I can’t just up and leave.”

Because she tested positive early, Dayna is being monitored and a state health nurse calls her once a day. She is grateful for that support. Doctors have said she is so immune-compromised they don’t yet want her going out, even if she could. “They want to check my lungs and all my organs now,” she said.

Dayna is grateful for her family, friends and neighbors who have all helped her deal with the unusual situation. It’s a situation that she emphasized has no clear end date.

“Life is not anywhere close to normal,” she said. “I still have a long recovery. I have no idea when I can get back to work. It’s really scary. I don’t know if I have permanent damage as a result of this or not. I still struggle to breathe. People need to take this seriously. It is nothing to mess with and I want to get that message to people. I want people to stay safe.”

Jay Prentiss

Local business owner of Altitude Painting, athlete and dad to a four-year-old son, Jay Prentiss is still struggling with major fatigue and other symptoms. He agrees with the idea that everyone, no matter how healthy they feel, needs to take the virus seriously and keep other people safe. Like Dayna, Jay first felt the onset of the sickness in early March. It started with a slight sore throat and a minor burn in his chest. He is still sidelined with little energy and is trying to recover in Denver.

“I had gone for a backcountry ski and thought I overdid it, even though I wasn’t going that hard,” he recalled. “I had minor symptoms for the first week or so. I just felt fatigued, burning in the chest and that slight sore throat. Then one day I noticed I was short of breath. Didn’t seem that alarming but thought I would have that for a few days and be better. Then two days after that I was in the emergency room worried for my life.”

Jay is 49 and said he had no “underlying conditions” that he knew of. “I did not consider myself vulnerable to this at all,” he said.

After his symptoms got worse, he contacted healthcare officials. “They said to stay home unless it was absolutely urgent. So, I just tried to tough it out,” Jay said. “Sometimes I would tell myself that I can do anything for a minute and then do that all day long. Most days I just focused on getting any breath I could. My entire being was focused on breathing for so many days in a row.

“We have a four-year-old son so I tried to stay as calm and relaxed in front of him as I could,” Jay continued. “I kept telling myself that I would suffer forever to wake up and see him and my wife every day. I wouldn’t say that I stayed sane all the time and I definitely feel like I’ll be dealing with some of the mental trauma for a while. But, my wife, Crista, is very calming. She talked me back from the cliff a few times and I have just started to take every breath as a blessing.”

Jay did not definitively test positive for the coronavirus. “I’m definitely an anomaly but not alone when I tested negative for the virus and the antibodies,” he explained. “I am currently working with an immunologist in Denver and she is 100 percent sure that I had COVID, with no reservations, based on all the symptoms and information—but, I wasn’t able to get a test for 38 days so it was pretty much useless at that point.”

Even now, two months after experiencing the sore throat, Jay said it is still a rough road. “Some days are better than others but basically I have very little energy. Right now a 20-minute walk will feel like I rode a 100-mile mountain bike ride. And, that’s no joke,” he said. “I’m ready to get better but my body isn’t quite there yet. Who knows how long until I can fully recover? At this point I am just desperate to get my breath back fully.”

Jay said he is frustrated with some of the medical advice but related that the doctors admit they too are baffled by the virus. He feels fortunate that his wife and son didn’t get a bad case of the virus. Still, he spends a lot of his time on the phone trying to get information that can help his healing.

“I also try to sit in the grass for some part of the day. I spend a lot of the day doing breathing exercises or doing steams over the stove or anything to help me get better,” Jay said. “I’m trying my best to work and stay on top of my business and I’m very fortunate to have great employees. It hasn’t been easy but I am managing. And, every minute I am up for it I play with my son and try to spend time with my wife. That’s my priority.

“Each person has to do what they feel makes sense for them,” Jay concluded. “For me, from now on, I am going to be extremely careful. I wouldn’t wish what I am going through on anyone. It’s been the single most difficult and awful thing I have ever gone through. I think everyone’s priority should just be to keep other people safe. Whatever you do for yourself, that’s your prerogative.”

Jeff Scott

Another local who was hit with COVID-19 in early March, Jeff Scott, is not experiencing the same struggle as Jay and Dayna but he still feels it at times. He said he had not dealt with an illness anything like it. While showing all the symptoms of the virus, there were so few coronavirus tests in the county in March, doctors did not use one on him but they said he likely had it.

“I started going down on the evening of March 8 and by the next morning I had a fever and massive body aches,” said Jeff, who is 55. “At first I thought it was the flu but it got a lot worse. Later that week I had huge night sweats and then a massive tightness in my chest. I found it hard to breathe.”

Jeff went to a screening site in Gunnison and tested negative for influenza. The doctor said, given Jeff’s demographic, he wasn’t going to use a test for him. The fever continued into the next week. Over the course of the major symptoms Jeff lost 15 pounds. “I’d crawl under the blankets with the chills and sleep. Then I’d wake up in a puddle. Breathing was difficult. There were times I couldn’t move from the bed to the next room,” he described.

He largely got over the illness within two or three weeks but he said there are still residual impacts. “Sometimes I’ll be climbing the stairs and my legs feel super heavy and do not want to move. I think the virus got into places where I’ve had previous issues like my wrist, ankle and shoulder. I’ll feel searing pain in my shoulder, for example. And sometimes my left elbow aches like mad. It is hard to lift my left arm at times. Even when I try to bring the phone to my ear, it sometimes won’t work. It is really weird.”

Jeff said his girlfriend had what seemed a milder case back in the winter but even now she can get a relapse for a few days.

“Like I said when I had this in March: This is not something anyone would want to get,” Jeff said.

As Dayna concluded: “It’s nothing to mess with.”

By Dawne Belloise

Will Shoemaker pronounces his north-central Indiana hometown in his best Hoosier accent, “La-Fee-ette” and explains that it’s a twin city with West Lafayette, where Purdue University’s campus is. His mom was a special education high school teacher and his father owned a small grocery store chain that he conceptualized when selling roadside fruit as a middle school student. Will was a sports-oriented kid, playing team sports, soccer and wrestling, throughout high school. However, he later became more interested in outdoor sports. “My parents were avid skiers and I had an uncle in Denver so our family vacations were mostly skiing everywhere in Colorado and all over the central Rockies.”

By the time he was in high school, Will was snowboarding full-time. He also became a rock climber and a mountain biker. “We had rock climbing gyms about a 45-minute drive away and on weekends my friends and I would drive to Red River Gorge in Kentucky, five hours away, to climb.”

During spring break 1999, in his senior year of high school, he and a couple of friends drove out to Crested Butte and on their way into Gunnison noticed Western State College (now Western Colorado University) and decided it would be a good thing to be skiing while getting a degree. Will had been to Crested Butte twice previously on family vacations, for both skiing and biking, but it was the drive out with his friends that year that convinced him to eventually move. “That trip was what led me to decide that I was going to live in Colorado one day. I was into rock climbing, skiing and mountain biking so why would you stay in the Midwest?”

He enrolled at Purdue not knowing what path he would take, “but Mom, being an educator, had experience in cultivating that next step. She lined up an interest and aptitude test. It spit out about a dozen possible career choices. I don’t remember a single one except journalist. I had no experience in writing, not even for the high school newspaper or yearbook, but I decided to pursue it. They had a broad field of communications programs but not a journalism program.” However, there was a unique opportunity in the independent student-run daily newspaper that was funded through an endowment and served as the primary newspaper for West Lafayette.

“As a freshman at Purdue, I went to work for the Purdue Exponent. It was actually a paid-per-article job. It was a unique opportunity because there were city, county, sports and editorial desks run by student editors. Each had five or six reporters working for them. It was a large organization and extremely eye-opening for me. It laid the foundation for the career I would pursue.”

But during his sophomore year, Will decided he just didn’t want to live in West Lafayette anymore. “I figured I’d get enough credits and transfer.” His friend, who was already in Gunnison at WSC, was feeding him snow reports, “and I came to the realization that Gunnison was where I needed to be.” So he packed up and headed west in 2002 with a plan to work enough to get in-state residency and then enroll at WSC.

“I ended up working for a little over a year. My first job was as a lift op at Monarch,” he recalls. In his second year, he became a snowboard instructor, working at Monarch for three seasons. In the summers he painted houses, mostly in Crested Butte, while also working at the Wet Grocer in Gunnison. It left him with little time to bike and climb.

When he finally achieved in-state residency, he enrolled at WSC, majoring in English, “because I was still interested in journalism but they only offered it as a minor,” and he graduated in 2006. During his time at WSC, Will served as news editor and managing editor for their newspaper, Top of the World. “I had received a Colorado Press Associate internship and scholarship, which resulted in an internship with the Gunnison Country Times in the summer of 2005.” During fall semester 2005 and spring 2006, he completed two additional internships with the Gunnison newspaper and after his graduation, they offered Will a job.

“I declined. I had always been attracted to the idea of living in Boulder County,” he explains. His girlfriend, now wife, Leora Wallace, wanted to pursue culinary school, so she enrolled in Boulder. “And my plan was that with my experience I thought I was going to roll into any job I wanted.” Will says.

Will interviewed with the Longmont Times-Call as an entry-level reporter. “The interview went great. We had already packed up our stuff to move and they called and said, we’ve given it to somebody else. I thought, what am I going to do now?”

They moved to Longmont anyway, and Will went on the job hunt. “I had experience as a bike mechanic, both in high school and at college so I took a job as bike mechanic, and continued sending my resume to anybody who would look at it in the Boulder-Denver-Metro area. After about three months, I got an interview and job offer from Metro West newspapers, owned by Landmark Communications. I took it.”

He was covering county and city governments and was a general assignment reporter for the north Denver area. “I loved it. It was continuation of the work I had done. What I didn’t like was the commute.” The company was based in Brighton, which was 35 miles from his home in Longmont. “We were spending most of our time in the mountains west of Boulder and really didn’t like the congestion on the Front Range. We reached the realization that we were going to end up in the mountains again.”

About a year later, they took a trip back to the Gunnison Valley to see friends, and about that same time, they both applied for and received job offers, which enabled them to move back in 2007. “Chris Dickey offered me a job at the Gunnison Country Times as a general assignment reporter and my wife was offered a job at a Crested Butte restaurant.” They were finally spending their summers riding bikes and skiing hard every winter. The couple bought a house in Gunnison and in 2011, Will was promoted to editor.

Will started helping his friend Kyle Jones with marketing and communications in 2016 for his Cold Smoke splitboards. “I really enjoyed the work and around the same time I joined the board of directors of the Crested Butte Snowsports Foundation. Through that responsibility, I served as chair of the marketing and public relations committee. It was jointly between my experience with Cold Smoke and the Snowsports Foundation that I realized I really enjoyed the idea of working with communications and marketing within the outdoor industry.” So when Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s senior communications specialist left this past fall, Will applied and was hired.

After all his journalism experience throughout college and his twenties and thirties, Will felt it was a hard decision to leave that career, “but I’m not a person that does well without occasional change. I was at a point in time with my life that I felt like I needed a change and I saw a field of work that sounded really appealing to me, that I had some experience with, so I knew that I needed to pursue that opportunity.” It was outdoor recreation that drew Will to the Gunnison Valley and initially, he says, “That was part of my decision to move into this other line of work. I saw it as an opportunity to bring my passion and career closer together.”

These days Will’s not into mountain biking as much as he is trail running. “Most of my time in summer months is spent on running trails. Over the past decade, most of the time I spend skiing is in the backcountry. To be able to snowmobile up and over and access the Anthracites, and coming over Ohio Pass in the winter, it’s so quiet. In the fall I spend a lot of time hunting for big game. I started hunting white tail deer when I was growing up in Indiana. When I moved out here, I refocused on elk and particularly archery hunting. I get a tag every year either for deer or elk,” Will says. He also loves to fish. “Gunnison River is one of my favorites, from Almont to Blue Mesa, because there’s such a high concentration of fish.”

What Will loves about living in the Gunnison Valley is what most feel is important. “It’s the tight-knit community, the endless recreational opportunities and the character of the people who live here. I think you’ve got to be pretty gritty to enjoy living in a place like the Gunnison Valley on a year-round basis. I feel that goes all the way back to the miners and ranchers who moved here a hundred or more years ago. It’s reflected in the fact that we were never a gold and silver mining town, we were a coal mining town. It’s reflected in the harshness of the climate—winters are tough and the valley is often the coldest place in the nation. The mountains north of Crested Butte get tons of feet of snow in the winters. And we don’t have those larger population centers that offer a lot of comfort and convenience. We instead have Teocalli Tamale and that sign that may be on their door on a powder day that says they’re closed because the employees went skiing.”

How to enjoy being sequestered

by Dawne Belloise

It was actually rather sweet that the local governments took on the roll of mom and grounded all its senior citizens over the age of 60. It makes a statement that the community values its elders and moves to protect them.

In this mountain town, many of our sexagenarians and older are in far better shape than most Americans in their 40s, but the COVID-19 virus that has ravaged the world and thrown us into a full-on lockdown can wreak
havoc with the healthiest seniors, and just as important, strain our limited medical resources, hence the reason to sequester yourself, Boomer.

If you need assistance, supplies, food or medications, even errands run, there’s a Facebook page called Local Love, started by Heather Connor, that matches
volunteer services with those in need and focuses on local, highrisk people who are isolated or quarantined, as well the hourly wage earners who are now out of
work. You can access this page at facebook.com/locallovecb.

Initiating a self-imposed isolation or quarantine doesn’t mean solitary confinement, with today’s social media, internet streaming and live conferencing technology. We’re fortunate up here in our paradise because we can enjoy the outdoors without running into snifflers and contaminants or spreading those germs ourselves. We have open space, wilderness and plenty of
roads that lead to feeling freedom despite the legally imposed or self-imposed quarantine.

Sure, there are wide ranging aspects and consequences of this COVID-19 virus that’s got all of us biting our nails (but don’t— don’t put your fingers in your
mouth or touch your face, and for cripe’s sake, wash those hands) but let’s not focus on that right now. Here are some things for geezers to keep themselves occupied until this thing passes—and it will, and we’ll all work together to get through it because that’s who we are as a community.

Fresh air and sunshine

When the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 screamed across the world, medics discovered that even severely ill flu patients who were attended to in the outdoors, sunshine and fresh air recovered better than those treated indoors.
This practice seems to have prevented deaths among both patients and the medical staff. We now know that ultraviolet radiation in sunlight works as a natural disinfectant and fresh air can help mitigate viruses and other harmful germs. Plus it just feels good to be outside in the mountains. So, get yourself out into the day.

Snow stuff

Just because the lifts aren’t spinning doesn’t mean ski season is over. There’s plenty of snow in the backcountry and you can still skin up the mountain. There are lots of sledding hills in town to slide down and bring out your
inner child. It’s still peak season for snowmobiling in the backcountry. You can Nordic ski or snowshoe out to Gothic, up the Slate or Washington Gulch for
close destinations.

Al Smith is still grooming Cement Creek for Nordic skiing and snowshoeing. The Crested Butte Nordic Center is still grooming their trails and plans to continue through April 12 and possibly longer, as long as conditions
allow. Executive director Christy Hicks says, “It’s important, now more than ever, that we continue to get people outside, so we’re going to do everything
possible to make trails and equipment available to people.”

There are free trails open to the public as well—Town Ranch on the east side of town loops out 5k all the way to Riverbend and the Rec Path is being groomed. The Rec Path can be used for walking, but it’s best to do that in the mornings when the snow is still firm and you don’t posthole and destroy the grooming for
skiing. Season passes are now only $50 and can be purchased online, along with discounted equipment, at cbnordic.org. Hicks notes that people can also make a donation in lieu of a pass to help support the Nordic Center.

Walk

You can circumnavigate town, doing the bridges tour, avoiding downtown and peopled areas. Right now, Peanut Lake Road is gorgeous with its spring views of Paradise Divide and Gothic Mountain and the migratory birds will begin showing up soon as the lake begins to melt. In fact, we’ll probably see the first robins arrive this weekend. Kebler Pass Road is a sweet little two-mile hike up to the trailhead for the Irwin and snowmobiling parking area, and an easy walk
down. Just pick a road or trail and go.

Take a drive

Check out the melting process on Blue Mesa, head over to the Black Canyon as both north and south rims are open, or just cruise up Black Mesa Road
(Highway 92 over the dam), stopping at the various overlooks to peer down into the canyon. Taylor Canyon is also a sweet drive closer to home.

Fish

Roaring Judy ponds are open and you can spend many hours in the sun trying to outsmart those fish. Ice fishing on both Taylor and Blue Mesa reservoirs
is still good right now, and the East River is starting to get decent for fly fishing, as is the lower Taylor River and the lower Gunnison River at Cooper’s Ranch. Neversink is just west of Gunnison and is great for both fishing and hiking. If you feel like a drive, the Pleasure Park at the Gunnison River Gorge is a happening spot for fly fishers. Just keep your distance from people and pack a lunch so you stay out of the North Fork Valley restaurants and such.

Bike

Grab your townie and head up Peanut Lake Road, Kebler, the mountain or just gently cruise around town. Road biking is great this time of year and so is fatbiking, which you can do on the Nordic trails.

Four walls and more

You don’t ever have to be alone or without conversation with today’s technology and social media. Between Viber, Skype, Zoom, Facetime, Facebook and Messenger and a multitude of computer and phone apps, you can have a virtual cocktail party with all your friends in a group conference. Online, you can learn a new language, find a guitar teacher (there are several local ones who will give you online lessons), jam with other musicians or get heady into academics and take the free online classes now offered by the Ivy League colleges. Read all those books and New Yorker magazines that have piled up on your coffee table all winter. Binge watch those Netflix series you fell behind on. Take a cooking class or learn how to sew. You can go virtually anywhere in
the world.

Download the Zoom app at zoom.us for your phone or computer to stream yoga, meditation and workouts from some of your local venues that are offering these services. The Community Yoga Co-op is offering some classes streaming live. Thrive Yoga is starting to set up their classes via streaming, as well as meditation sessions.

Still need a workout? Yes you do. Core will be closed but offers workouts, also via live stream, from the Zoom app. Call Core at (970) 349-6613, find them on Facebook or corecrestedbutte.com.

Get some culture—MUSEUMS

An amazing link from Travel & Leisure (travelandleisure.com) listing virtual tours of 12 museums across the world is worth an afternoon or rainy day. Google “12 Museums Around the World virtual tour” or in your browser go to travelandleisure.com/attractions/museums-galleries/museums-with-virtual-tours.

Learn to make Jewelry

Local Meaghan Young has a wonderful online jewelry class called the Silversmithing Club (thesilversmithingclub.com) that teaches the art of silver working to create earrings, rings and other ornamentation. It’s a good time to learn this ancient craft and adorn yourself and your friends or perhaps develop it into a new career.

One thing is for certain: You’re in the best place you can be during a pandemic, not only for the environment and outdoors, but especially for the wonderfully caring community members who lift each other up and take care of each other.

How to enjoy being sequestered

By Dawne Belloise

It was actually rather sweet that the local governments took on the roll of mom and grounded all its senior citizens over the age of 60. It makes a statement that the community values its elders and moves to protect them.

In this mountain town, many of our sexagenarians and older are in far better shape than most Americans in their 40s, but the COVID-19 virus that has ravaged the world and thrown us into a full-on lockdown can wreak havoc with the healthiest seniors, and just as important, strain our limited medical resources, hence the reason to sequester yourself, Boomer.

If you need assistance, supplies, food or medications, even errands run, there’s a Facebook page called Local Love, started by Heather Connor, that matches volunteer services with those in need and focuses on local, high-risk people who are isolated or quarantined, as well the hourly wage earners who are now out of work. You can access this page at facebook.com/locallovecb.

Initiating a self-imposed isolation or quarantine doesn’t mean solitary confinement, with today’s social media, internet streaming and live conferencing technology. We’re fortunate up here in our paradise because we can enjoy the outdoors without running into snifflers and contaminants or spreading those germs ourselves. We have open space, wilderness and plenty of roads that lead to feeling freedom despite the legally imposed or self-imposed quarantine.

Sure, there are wide ranging aspects and consequences of this COVID-19 virus that’s got all of us biting our nails (but don’t—don’t put your fingers in your mouth or touch your face, and for cripe’s sake, wash those hands) but let’s not focus on that right now. Here are some things for geezers to keep themselves occupied until this thing passes—and it will, and we’ll all work together to get through it because that’s who we are as a community.

Fresh air and sunshine

When the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 screamed across the world, medics discovered that even severely ill flu patients who were attended to in the outdoors, sunshine and fresh air recovered better than those treated indoors. This practice seems to have prevented deaths among both patients and the medical staff. We now know that ultraviolet radiation in sunlight works as a natural disinfectant and fresh air can help mitigate viruses and other harmful germs. Plus it just feels good to be outside in the mountains. So, get yourself out into the day.

snow stuff

Just because the lifts aren’t spinning doesn’t mean ski season is over. There’s plenty of snow in the backcountry and you can still skin up the mountain. There are lots of sledding hills in town to slide down and bring out your inner child. It’s still peak season for snowmobiling in the backcountry. You can Nordic ski or snowshoe out to Gothic, up the Slate or Washington Gulch for close destinations.

Al Smith is still grooming Cement Creek for Nordic skiing and snowshoeing. The Crested Butte Nordic Center is still grooming their trails and plans to continue through April 12 and possibly longer, as long as conditions allow. Executive director Christy Hicks says, “It’s important, now more than ever, that we continue to get people outside, so we’re going to do everything possible to make trails and equipment available to people.”

There are free trails open to the public as well—Town Ranch on the east side of town loops out 5k all the way to Riverbend and the Rec Path is being groomed. The Rec Path can be used for walking, but it’s best to do that in the mornings when the snow is still firm and you don’t posthole and destroy the grooming for skiing. Season passes are now only $50 and can be purchased online, along with discounted equipment, at cbnordic.org. Hicks notes that people can also make a donation in lieu of a pass to help support the Nordic Center.

walk

You can circumnavigate town, doing the bridges tour, avoiding downtown and peopled areas. Right now, Peanut Lake Road is gorgeous with its spring views of Paradise Divide and Gothic Mountain and the migratory birds will begin showing up soon as the lake begins to melt. In fact, we’ll probably see the first robins arrive this weekend. Kebler Pass Road is a sweet little two-mile hike up to the trailhead for the Irwin and snowmobiling parking area, and an easy walk down. Just pick a road or trail and go.

take a drive

Check out the melting process on Blue Mesa, head over to the Black Canyon as both north and south rims are open, or just cruise up Black Mesa Road (Highway 92 over the dam), stopping at the various overlooks to peer down into the canyon. Taylor Canyon is also a sweet drive closer to home.

fish

Roaring Judy ponds are open and you can spend many hours in the sun trying to outsmart those fish. Ice fishing on both Taylor and Blue Mesa reservoirs is still good right now, and the East River is starting to get decent for fly fishing, as is the lower Taylor River and the lower Gunnison River at Cooper’s Ranch. Neversink is just west of Gunnison and is great for both fishing and hiking. If you feel like a drive, the Pleasure Park at the Gunnison River Gorge is a happening spot for fly fishers. Just keep your distance from people and pack a lunch so you stay out of the North Fork Valley restaurants and such.

bike

Grab your townie and head up Peanut Lake Road, Kebler, the mountain or just gently cruise around town. Road biking is great this time of year and so is fatbiking, which you can do on the Nordic trails.

four walls and more

You don’t ever have to be alone or without conversation with today’s technology and social media. Between Viber, Skype, Zoom, Facetime, Facebook and Messenger and a multitude of computer and phone apps, you can have a virtual cocktail party with all your friends in a group conference. Online, you can learn a new language, find a guitar teacher (there are several local ones who will give you online lessons), jam with other musicians or get heady into academics and take the free online classes now offered by the Ivy League colleges. Read all those books and New Yorker magazines that have piled up on your coffee table all winter. Binge watch those Netflix series you fell behind on. Take a cooking class or learn how to sew. You can go virtually anywhere in the world.

Download the Zoom app at zoom.us for your phone or computer to stream yoga, meditation and workouts from some of your local venues that are offering these services. The Community Yoga Co-op is offering some classes streaming live. Thrive Yoga is starting to set up their classes via streaming, as well as meditation sessions.

Still need a workout? Yes you do. Core will be closed but offers workouts, also via live stream, from the Zoom app. Call Core at (970) 349-6613, find them on Facebook or corecrestedbutte.com.

get some culture—MUSEUMS

An amazing link from Travel & Leisure (travelandleisure.com) listing virtual tours of 12 museums across the world is worth an afternoon or rainy day. Google “12 Museums Around the World virtual tour” or in your browser go to travelandleisure.com/attractions/museums-galleries/museums-with-virtual-tours.

LEARN TO MAKE JEWELRY

Local Meaghan Young has a wonderful online jewelry class called the Silversmithing Club (thesilversmithingclub.com) that teaches the art of silver working to create earrings, rings and other ornamentation. It’s a good time to learn this ancient craft and adorn yourself and your friends or perhaps develop it into a new career.

One thing is for certain: You’re in the best place you can be during a pandemic, not only for the environment and outdoors, but especially for the wonderfully caring community members who lift each other up and take care of each other.

There’s a distinctively pungent aroma that permeates the senses when you’re walking through Rob Carney’s jungle of cannabis. It smells green. Tightly formed buds are in various stages of maturity, loaded on tall tree-like plants in his grow operation, Riverland Remedies. He sells his product under the brand name of Riverland Flower Company since those buds are essentially flowers. His horticulture skills have gotten a glowing reputation, Rob says, mostly due to his grower, Miles Bruce. So much so that his cannabis is now featured in local dispensaries. 

Rob’s interest in growing stemmed from when his marijuana won both categories in the local Blazer’s Ball contest, a thumbs-up from the judges and the People’s Choice. He was then invited to the Adam Dunn Invitational, a well-known national competition in Denver for the cannabis industry and he took third that year. The following year, 2015, Rob’s weed placed first in a competition of 42 growers and at that point, Rob surmised, “I knew I was doing something right. I was going up against some of the best growers in the country.” He figured if he could beat some of the best in the country then it was time to go into business.

Rob was born in Bolivia, South America, because his father worked in the oil industry and the family moved around quite a bit—from California to Jackson, Mississippi in what Rob explains was “during the south’s turbulent times, when synagogues right down the street from us were burned down.” In 1968, the family moved to Oklahoma City. The Vietnam war was still raging; his oldest brother, Jan, was a helicopter pilot. “Those times were spent watching the war on TV,” he says. His brothers were much older than he was by a couple of decades but he was close to his special needs sister, Faith, who was only a year and a half older. “Mom was brilliant, a traditional housewife, but basically the caregiver for Faith. I had my neighborhood friends but my sister and I were inseparable until I went to college.”

The family moved to Denver in 1972 and as a kid, Rob became entrenched in the skateboard scene. “I skated every single day from the time I was 10 until I got a car. Instead of having roller skates on your board, the resurgence had urethane wheels so you wouldn’t stop on every rock and pebble in the road. We skated anything and everything, emulating the Dogtown and Zboys. That was our skating style, it was very aggressive. We went to skate parks and also skated the Chatfield dam water release pipe, a huge concrete pipe where you could push your board above vertical. I was always a big kid so it was hard for me but I was actually pretty good at it.” 

Rob tells about the other places his clan skated. “The Health Bowl was an abandoned Olympic-size indoor pool. At night, all the druggies went there and threw their beer bottles, needles and garbage into the pool. Every morning we’d go sweep it out, pick up all the garbage and make it skateable.” They’d drive down residential alleys looking for backyard pools in empty houses to skate. “A lot of times you’d get there and there would be people skating already. Most of the time nobody lived there—sometimes the neighbors called the cops.”

When he graduated from Wheatridge High School in 1980, Rob had no idea what he wanted to do. “I came from a traditional family, so you go to college but I wanted nothing to do with college,” he recalls. However, his parents insisted, especially since his brother, who had died in a car accident the previous year, specified that his life insurance policy was to be used to pay for Rob’s tuition. 

Even so, school wasn’t a priority for him, and his grades weren’t high so he explored Colorado colleges that had more lenient acceptance parameters—Adams State, Fort Lewis and Western State College (WSC, now Western Colorado University). “I chose WSC because it was closer to home. I didn’t know about Crested Butte and the ski resort when I came to Gunnison. I didn’t even know they had a thing called a ski pass so I only have 39 passes from the mountain,” he says of his 40-year residency in the valley. “I started skiing more and more. As a skier, I was okay. I started hearing more about the ski bum lifestyle. I was spending more time in Crested Butte and had more friends up here than in Gunnison.” Rob laughs that he did the five-year program to get his degree in business and history in 1985, and then moved up to Crested Butte the following year. “All I wanted to do was ski and get better at it, and go see shows.”

In 1983, Rob got his first taste of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. “The whole way down we listened to the Grateful Dead and I had never listened to the Dead,” he says, and he was wowed. “The festival blew my mind, Bill Monroe and Sam Bush’s Newgrass Revival—I was hooked. The Bluegrass Fest became my life, along with seeing the Dead all around the country. I had no idea people traveled to see bands. My first Dead show was New Year’s Eve 1984-85 and I thought, Wow, what a community. I went to as many shows as I could possibly see.”

Rob was working at McDell’s, which is now Clark’s Market. He fell in love with mountain biking that summer. “I was determined to get into shape. I was heavy but I got good at riding.” Later, he worked at The Marketplace and learned to be a short order cook, then went on to Angelo’s in 1990, where he worked for a decade, starting as a diver and working his way up to general manager. 

“All I really did was skiing, bike riding and going to Dead shows and Telluride Bluegrass. In 1990 I followed the Dead across Europe. I had a great time,” he says of the two-month sojourn that led into his interest in the production side of music for 11 years for Planet Bluegrass. He was also the archivist for Four Corners, recording all their bluegrass festivals. “I’m still doing it but not as much,” he notes. Rob was stage manager for Leftover Salmon from 2009 to 2013. 

Rob became interested in growing professionally when cannabis was legalized in Colorado. “I was working up at Paradise Warming House as assistant front end manager when I got a job as a budtender at the Crested Butte Wellness Center, now Backcountry Cannabis. I had an opportunity to move to Longmont in 2014 to work for a start-up company growing CBD hemp but it didn’t really work out,” so after a year he moved back to Crested Butte to work at various grow facilities, which he did for four years. 

Riverland Remedies began selling its first crop in 2018, but in 2019 Rob’s sister died the day before his birthday and his beloved dog, Chispas, died a month later. Rob was devastated at the loss of his most beloved family and times became difficult, but he continued to press forward. “I made one of the best decisions I ever made, in December of 2019, by hiring Miles Bruce as a grower. I had realized that I didn’t have the physical strength to do the work anymore and first hired John Hiekkila as trimmer, then Miles helped me turn this place around.” 

Rob then hired a brokerage company to start selling his product. “Distribution is tough. We couldn’t figure out how to sell our pot. I had hired a consultant to help get my business going. Once we started using the brokerage company, we started selling product.” Rob feels his company has come together through hard work. He works seven days a week. Last Sunday he had his first day off in two and a half years.

“Just through sweat we started pulling ahead, and we did better and better. Skiing, mountain biking, along with music, were my passions forever but as my body started aging, arthritis set in and after two back surgeries for stenosis of the spine I just figured that when I got into my fifties it might be a good time to start a business. Growing was something I could do, but not the physical, so now I have Miles,” he says of the symbiotic owner-grower relationship. 

They call it weed, but it takes a highly evolved technology and process with exorbitant overhead to make these hybrid “weeds” grow into a sellable and desirable product. “People have just been loving our product and it’s one of the most popular strains at Soma,” Rob says.

After 40 years, Rob is still enthralled with his community. “In a way, it’s like a family but it’s not, because this family is always coming and going. We know everybody and that’s a good and bad thing because everyone knows your business,” he laughs. “The friendships I’ve developed here have been going on for 40 years in this gorgeous place.”