Telluride: A hiker's paradise...

Will worked hard at his Neuromorphic Computing workshop. They went from 9 am until at least 5 or 6 pm each day, with a mixture of guest lectures and working on the projects. Then for the first week he was there he would also go back each night for an 8 pm talk. I occupied myself by heading out on the numerous hiking trails pretty much every day. As you can see from the map below, the area is just riddled with mostly well marked and signposted trails.

I spoke to a woman at the information desk who recommended I start with the Bear Creek trail to acclimatise. I was feeling the effects of sleeping at such a high altitude for the first couple of nights. I was a bit head-achy and didn't sleep too well. However, after a few days my body adjusted and I felt fine.

The Bear Creek walk was lovely. It was a good starter because it didn't gain (or lose) much altitude, it was only about 2 hours return, plus it had awesome views and a very nice waterfall at the end.

Here is a selection of pics from some of my other walks. Trails I walked included: Ridge, Village, Sheridan, Basin, Prospect and Boomerang trails.

I saw a bit of wildlife while out and about, but unfortunately no bears... When speaking to locals they said it is very hit and miss when and where you get to see them, but there are plenty around. They have been known to come right into the Mountain Village at night. However, I did see LOADS of chipmunks...

  

Marmots were also all over the place.

Prairie Dogs were pretty common...

One day I saw what is either a female elk or female deer, I'm not too sure which.

However, I think my favourite animal was the super cute little Pika.

During the second week I had my biggest day out on the hills. It ended up being an epic 23km 7 hours plus day, combining parts of 4 different trails. I started by taking the See Forever trail to the very top of the ski hill at over 12000 feet.

The trail certainly lived up to its name and I got gorgeous 360 degree views.

There was still a bit of snow around at the top, which is pretty amazing considering the temperature was in the low to mid thirties for the whole two weeks we were in Telluride.

Once I'd eaten my lunch at the top of the hill I back-tracked a bit and took the Wasatch Connection trail over the hill and into the next canyon. You can see it in the pic above, heading off to the left. This was my favourite part of the walk. There were more stunning views of the surrounding peaks...

But there were also meadows and hillsides covered in wildflowers.

Sometimes the snow on the trail made life a bit difficult, especially when it was quite a narrow single-track trail with a reasonably steep drop-off at times!

The Wasatch Connection joined up with the Wasatch trail once I had lost quite a bit of altitude (quite quickly, via a series of steep gravel switch-backs, my poor knees!). This trail was still very scenic.

The trail passed the remains of an old abandoned mine.

Eventually I hit Bear Creek, and just had to follow the Bear Creek trail back to Telluride. This part of the walk was a breeze. It felt like walking on a 6-lane highway after the terrain I'd had for most of the day! I came across more people walking on this section of the track than I had for the whole rest of the day. Once in Telluride I caught the gondola back up the mountain to our condo, tired but happy after a brilliant day of walking.

Telluride for the 4th of July

We arrived in Telluride, Colorado early evening on Sunday the 3rd of July. We were there for two weeks while Will participated in a Neuromorphic Computing workshop. This was a truly international event with professors, doctorate and post-doc students, as well as the major players from industry coming from all over the world. As far as I understand, neuromorphic chips are designed to work in a similar way to the human brain and may (or may not!) be the 'next big thing' in computing. During his two weeks Will was working on a project applying the technology to search and rescue robots. 

Telluride is a small town up in the Rocky Mountains with a population of less than 3000. It is situated in a box canyon and is actually two towns in one. There is Telluride itself, situated on the valley floor but still at 8750 feet above sea level (over 2600 metres), and then there is the Mountain Village at 9540 feet on the other side of the ski hill. The towns are connected by a free gondola which runs from 7am to midnight every day. Telluride is one of North America's premier ski destinations, so Will was a bit gutted to be there in the middle of summer! I didn't mind though, I had two weeks of hiking to look forward to...

Even after two weeks, the novelty of travelling by gondola never wore off. We would use it several times each day. It is definitely one of Will's more unusual commutes to work!

We had brilliant accommodation up in the Mountain Village. The whole two weeks were paid for by the workshop, which was a good thing as it would have absolutely destroyed our budget otherwise! We had a huge 3-bed 3-bath condo and Will and I commandeered the master bedroom which had an amazing double jacuzzi spa-bath in its en suite bathroom. We had an Israeli professor share our accommodation for one week while we were there. Telluride is crazy expensive, it was fascinating checking out some of the real estate windows in town. A prime example is Tom Cruise's $59 million dollar house! The link has some lovely photos of Telluride. Below are a couple of views looking towards our comparatively modest dwelling. I can only imagine how gorgeous it is in winter, covered in snow. 

And a couple of pics inside...

In fact, the only negative of our condo was an overactive ice-maker! The sensor was broken so it just kept churning out ice as if possessed. Every couple of days we would have to empty a whole lot down the sink.

Monday was a public holiday for the 4th of July Independence Day celebrations. This is a huge deal over here. The queue for the gondola to get down to Telluride Monday morning was pretty crazy. Luckily there is a 'singles' line which is much quicker. The gondolas each take 8 people and once they have one or two groups in, they fill it up with people from the singles line. Even when Will and I were travelling together we would use the singles line as we didn't care if we got split up, although we never actually did.

Telluride's Independence Day celebrations included a street parade which half the town seemed to participate in. Will even got to walk in it as his workshop put in an entry. 

See if you can spot Will below. In case you are wondering (I know most of the locals were!) the tinfoil hat creations represent neurons... 

The parade lasted for more than an hour. Here is a selection of pics.

After the parade it seemed like the whole town made their way down to the Town Park where festivities continued with a mass BBQ put on by the local Fire Service as a fundraiser. Excellent food and $2 beers made for a very relaxed afternoon.

Will and I returned to the Mountain Village late afternoon. There was a free concert in the park at 7pm, followed by fireworks at 9pm, but we didn't bother heading back into town. We were both pretty knackered after all our travels from the previous week, so chose to have a nice relaxing evening in instead.